Last month, the team behind the Telegram messaging app added a handful of new capabilities, including a new video editor and animated stickers in photos and videos. Today, a new update is bringing the version number to 6.3 and adding more capabilities to the app on multiple platforms.
For starters, Telegram is increasing the size limit for files shared on the app, from 1.5GB per file - the limit that had been in place since 2014 - to 2GB for any file type. By comparison, WhatsApp allows media files to be shared up to 16MB, and up to 100MB for documents.
The update also includes the ability to change your profile picture into a profile video. The video will play when someone opens the user's profile, and it's possible to choose a specific frame from the video to be displayed in chats. It's also now possible to go through your previous profile pictures and videos and choose one of them as your main profile picture in lieu of your current one.
The video editor also has a new option for photos and videos from the front-facing camera, which allows users to smoothen their skin in case they want to hide any imperfections. The team has also added mini thumbnails for photos in the chat list and notifications, instead of a generic thumbnail for media files. If you like animated emoji, some more have been added with today's update.
There are other improvements to the chatting experience, starting with improvements to the People Nearby feature, which now also indicates the distance between the the user and any detected contacts. Users that often get messages from new people outside their contacts can now have those chats automatically muted and sent to the archive, though this will need to be enabled from the app's privacy settings page.
Back in March, Telegram added the option to view channel statistics to gauge follower engagement over time. Channel statistics are now available for channels with 500 subscribers or more, and also for groups with 500 members or more. In the future, the features will be available for groups with just 100 members.
As for version-specific changes, Android users now have a redesigned music player with an expandable track list, the video editor now allows for cropping and rotating videos, and the text input box expands smoothly as more lines are added. Meanwhile, Telegram Desktop now supports multiple accounts, similar to the mobile app, which has done so since 2017.
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