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Telegram 5.5 boosts privacy by allowing you to unsend all private messages

Telegram 5.5 has just been released for Android and iOS. Included with this update is the ability to unsend messages that you have sent or received. Unsending means that both you and the other contact can no longer see the message. The unsend feature was added two years ago but you could only unsend your own messages and there was a 48-hour time limit to do it in. Now, you have an unlimited amount of time.

Another new privacy-oriented feature in this update is the ability to make yourself anonymous on forwarded messages. Usually, when someone forwards one of your messages to somebody else there is a link back to your account. For those who want to obscure themselves from strangers, it’s now possible to go to the Privacy and Security settings and tighten the controls under Forwarded messages.

Instead of digging through the menu to inspect your forwarded messages settings, you could use another new tool that this update provides, settings search. When you now open the settings menu, you should see a search icon. Just press that, then key in a setting you’re looking for such as forwarded messages and voila. The search tool can also be used to ask questions with answers that feature in the app’s FAQ.

Telegram 5.5 brings with it some important updates to emoji functionality too. In its blog post, Telegram said:

“The GIF and stickers search has been upgraded on all mobile platforms – it now looks better and finds more cats. Any GIF you find can be previewed by tapping and holding. Sticker packs now have icons, which makes selecting the right pack easier. Large GIFs and video messages on Telegram are now streamed, so you can start watching them without waiting for the download to complete.

On Telegram for Android, you can now use keywords in many languages to find any emoji. If we are missing a keyword for an emoji, you’re welcome to suggest it here https://translations.telegram.org/en/emoji – emoji search will constantly be improving without the need to update Telegram.

You’ll also see a list of related emoji when typing a message. If you like an emoji enough to send it without any accompanying text, the emoji will appear larger in the chat on Android (iOS coming soon).”

Finally, support for VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack on Android has been added in this update. These options allow you to get spoken feedback on Telegram so that you can operate the app if you can’t see the screen well.

Telegram’s next update should be quite exciting as the company issued a poll which lets Telegram users decide which major feature they want to see next. The options are video calls, group voice calls, or folders for chats; currently, video calls are leading the poll with 61% of the vote with 386,000 opinions being cast.

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