A month after the original announcement, Telegram’s Stories feature is now rolling out to users. According to the company, only Premium subscribers can “currently” post Stories. All Telegram users can see those temporary, auto-expiring photo and video statuses.
Stories appear to be available with Telegram version 9.7.0 for Android. The latest update for the app adds a + button at the top of your chat list. Tapping this button will allow you to post a Story, with Telegram allowing you to add captions and links, and tag other users as well. You get a host of photo and video-editing tools to stylize your Stories.
While you can use pre-captured photos and videos in your Stories, Telegram also lets you live-record videos with the front and back cameras simultaneously. Depending on your setting, your Story will expire in 6, 12, 24, or 48 hours. You can also make Stories permanent, though. You’ll have to manually select which Stories will permanently appear on your profile page. Telegram gives you individual privacy settings for each.
Speaking of privacy, Telegram offers a range of privacy settings for your Stories. You can choose to make a Story public or make it viewable only to your contacts, select contacts, or Close Friends. A “My Stories” section at the top of the left hamburger menu is where you will find your stories. Telegram offers two separate tabs here: Saved and Archive. The latter tab lets you pick Stories that you want to make permanent.
Only Telegram Premium users can currently post Stories
For viewers, Stories will appear in an expandable section at the top of the chat list. Once again, you get control over the Stories that you see. If you don’t want to see those updates from a certain user, you can easily block or hide them. As said earlier, all Telegram users can now see Stories posted by other users. But only those with a Premium subscription can post Stories, at least for the time being.
It’s unclear when Telegram will bring this ability to free users. Meanwhile, if you’re willing to pay the company for this feature, the $4.99 per month subscription will give you a lot more. Telegram Premium offers larger file uploads (up to 4GB), faster downloads, transcriptions, up to 20 public t.me links, premium badges, custom app icons, an ad-free experience, and a host of other perks. You can click the button below to download the latest Telegram update.
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