Communities Are Now Being Tested in Telegram

In Telegram beta for Android, version 12.9, users can now organize communities that bring theme-related chats closer together.

The details:

• Chats Only: At the moment, only chats can be added to communities.

• How to Join: Telegram treats you as a member of a community if you join any chat linked to that community.

• What This Offers: If a chat is linked to a community, this is highlighted on the chat's profile page. From there, members can navigate to other chats in the community. Members can view the list of all “visible” chats in the community and join them.

• Chats Stay Independent: Telegram won’t add you to other chats in the community automatically. Different owners can offer to add their chats to a community.

• Can Merge Visually: Community chats can display separately or merge into a single item. This behavior is controlled by community admins using the “Show as One Chat” toggle. When it’s active, the community looks similar to forums, but each topic is instead an independent chat you can join.

• Hidden Chats: A chat can be added to a community with “hidden” visibility. A hidden chat can be seen only by those invited to it separately. This is similar to general and hidden channels in Discord servers. Members of the hidden chat can navigate into the community, while other community members can’t see the hidden chat.

• If We Should Expect Channels: The app code mentions adding channels, but the feature is unavailable, so it’s not clear whether it will be added in the future.

Creating communities is available only on the test server at the moment. You can add your group chat to a community in chat settings—just tap the “Add Group to a Community” option.

Subscribe to @betainfo — our second channel. There, our team shares all the new features discovered in the Telegram beta versions.

#Android #Beta