Setting your messages to “auto-delete” is great, because it kills two birds with one stone: your various apps and social networks won’t get clogged up with conversations that no longer matter, and you won’t have to worry about the privacy concerns that come with leaving your messages sitting around forever. I especially love Telegram’s new approach for auto-deleting old messages: The app can now auto-delete entire conversations for both parties. Sorry, people searching through old chats to catch you out with something you said months ago.
To get started with this ever-useful feature, make sure you’ve updated to the latest version of Telegram for Android or iOS, then launch the app and pull up a conversation. On Android, tap the triple-dot icon, select “Clear History,” and pick your duration.
On iOS, long-press on any message within the group chat. You’ll see an option to “Select” that message. Tap it, and then tap “Clear Chat” in the upper-left corner. You’ll then get this prompt:
Tap on Enable Auto-Delete, and you’ll be able to select whether messages in the chat should disappear for all members after a day or a week.
Whatever you pick, on whatever platform, your group chat will automatically inform everyone that messages will now be automatically deleted. Be prepared for the ensuing onslaught of replies.
That’s it. I recommend enabling this because, honestly, how often do you ever go back and look at ancient messages? If you think you’ll need to refer back to something, you can still always take a screenshot before the message vnishes.
How to create time-limited Telegram invite links
Speaking of privacy, Telegram’s update also adds new expiring invites into the mix. This feature means you can send out invites to your various groups and channels without worrying about those links giving anyone who finds them access to your chats forevermore.
To get started (on iOS, at least), pull up a group or a channel, tap its icon in the upper-right corner, and tap on Add Members. Tap on Invite to Group via Link, and then tap on Manage Invite Links. Tap on Create a New Link, and you’ll then be able to limit how many times people use that link by a time period (one hour to one week), expiration date, or number of users (and uses).
While I’d love it if the feature came with the option to kick people out after a certain period of inactivity (sort of like Discord’s temporary invites to servers), Telegram’s updates still provide incredibly use means to manage your more sprawling chats.
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