Telegram X April Update brings revamped notifications and account manager ~ XDA

Telegram may not be as popular as WhatsApp or iMessage, but it has its fair share of users. The application has a clean and intuitive interface, as well as always backed-up media and messages. Telegram X is a variation of the service which aims to replace Telegram at some point. Telegram X doesn’t have any legacy code from older versions of the app, so it’s more stable and infrastructurally more up to date. Just a couple of days ago the application was updated to version 0.21.7.1151, though it’s more conveniently known as the April Update. The list of changes is massive, but I’ll cherry-pick the most important ones.

New notifications system

The April Update comes with a completely rewritten notifications system, which Telegram calls Notifications 2.0. It has a lot of stability improvements and a couple of customization features. Probably the most notable change is that dismissed notifications will not appear again after receiving a message from another chat. Sometimes they just pop up randomly, so that’s now fixed too. Notification delays are also getting smarter so that you can continue messaging from your laptop while your phone lies on the table. Grouping the notifications is now possible too.

New account manager

Telegram also announced that the April Update includes Multi-account 2.0. As you probably already know, Telegram X has had support for multiple accounts for a while now, thus eliminating the needs of cloning apps or third-party alternatives. But, if you used many accounts, the device’s memory and battery struggled to keep up. Telegram X’s newest update fixes this issue by completely rewriting the core feature. They even claim that “it does not matter whether you have 3 or 3000 accounts in Telegram X,” and that’s very good to hear.

The features above are the ones that were built again from scratch, so I deemed them more important than all the others. But, there is more to the update. Telegram X now supports deleting messages on both ends in private chats, creating and participating in polls, installing and sharing language packs (I’m sure you’ll get creative with it), an improved 2FA process, and way more. The changelog can be seen below. The April Update is only available for 50% of users now, so you may not have received it yet. You can download Telegram X from the Google Play Store listing below.

Telegram X April Update Changelog

Notifications 2.0

Notifications have been rebuilt from scratch, bringing improved behavior & reliability, new features & customizations, and reduced background battery usage. There’re some highlights:

Notifications now work when there’s no connection with Telegram servers: it does not matter whether you are trying to access Telegram from censored regions or selected proxy is down;
Whenever there is a clear problem with notifications, you will see a warning in the app menu near “Settings”. Follow it to see the full guide on how to resolve it;
Clean notification tray. Dismissed notifications will not appear again when receiving notification from another chat, or due to unknown events;
Improved support for Edge Screen on Samsung devices. To turn on: System Settings > Display > Edge Screen > Edge lighting > Manage notifications > Turn toggle on for Telegram X;
Smart notification delays when you chat from another device;
Notifications are now grouped by chat type. Toggle this behavior in Settings > Notifications > Advanced > Merge notification categories;
Option to hide secret chat notifications at all, when device screen is locked (you will still hear sound & vibration);
Silent broadcast notifications from channels now silently displayed in the notification tray;
Separate settings for channels;
Disable message preview from specific chats;
System notification sound picker, when available (allows setting any custom notification sound);
Option to display read-only notifications while app is locked with Passcode;
Full control over mentions, replies & pinned messages notifications (with “Notify all members” toggle on).

By default, when someone mentions you in a chat, notification settings from that person are applied (like if they would send a message to you directly). That could become a problem, when you got popular in some chat, since the only option was either to mute each member one by one, or to disable notifications for all private chats.

In order to stop receiving unwanted notifications without muting all chats, now you can mute this group & simply turn off notification override for Mentions, Replies & Pinned Message notifications, both per-chat and globally in Settings > Notifications > Groups > Mentions and Replies / Pinned Messages;
While Telegram X notifications reliability improved dramatically, system settings on some device manufacturers still might prevent notifications from working reliably (i.e. big delays or not arriving at all while app is closed);

If you still experience issues with notifications, check if there are any warnings in Telegram X > Settings > Notifications. If no warnings are shown, check out troubleshooting notification issues. If it didn’t help too, contact Telegram Support.

I can also personally recommend checking out if there are any notifications issues specific to your device in other apps. I’m personally impressed with comprehensive Slack guide, which can be applied to almost any other Android app.

Features and Changes

Telegram X is now based on TDLib 1.4.0;
Delete chats & messages on both ends in private chats;
Polls: create and participate in community polls;
Custom languages: install & share language pack links. Help translating Telegram X to your language on Translations Platform;
Multi-account 2.0: completely reworked internal core architecture in order to dramatically reduce device memory & battery usage while using many accounts. Now it does not matter whether you have 3 or 3000 accounts in Telegram X, they will take similar amount of resources, and notifications will work for all of them;
Increased app launch speed. Keep in mind that first launch after updating Telegram X may take a while, since it has to optimize database for each account;
App Recovery: whenever Telegram X fails to launch due to an unresolvable error, next time you launch the app, you will see recovery screen that should help resolving the issue;
Pin messages in saved messages and any groups;
Quickly change audio playback position without waiting for the file to download;
Online member count in all groups. Improved total member count calculation;
New 2FA email recovery setup by code;
Improved censorship circumvention;
Chat filter by type;
Copy link for messages in private groups and channels;
Erase all downloaded media remotely.

When you sign out or kill Telegram X session from another device, all downloaded media will be erased as well. When Google Play Services are installed, Telegram X and TDLib will do its best to remove all data without need in opening the app once the device goes online.

This might be helpful in case your device is lost or stolen. You never know when this might happen, so be sure to keep Telegram X up-to-date.

Note this does not yet apply to media files which have been copied through “Save to Gallery/Downloads/Music” button;
Exact sign-in & last access time in Settings > Privacy & Security > Sessions;
Erase All Data: reduce Telegram X disk space usage. Always use this option instead of logging out & signing back in, reinstalling the app or clearing its data. Can be found in Settings > Data & Storage > Storage Usage > Three-dot menu;
Added new fields in Storage Usage;
Advanced Peer-to-Peer in Calls setting synced with other devices;
Contact joined Telegram notification setting is now synced with other devices;
Telegram X is now optimized for x86_64 CPUs;
Incomplete login attempts in the sessions list;
Share contacts externally to other apps;
Open cloud chat from the secret chat screen;
Open chat with bot in websites sessions list;
Updated libtgvoip to 2.4.4;
Better handling of hardware keyboards on login & password screens;
Better sorting in supergroups members list;
Apply to All when choosing emoji tone;
When previewing stickers, after sticker menu appears you will still be able to move finger to view other stickers;
Instant Auto-Lock for Passcode;
Hold Passcode button to change Passcode settings;
Alternative options when logging out;
Slightly improved look of Data and Storage, Network Usage & Storage Usage screens.