Telegram users up until this point could only delete their own copy of the message history while in normal chat. Only in Telegram’s End-to-End Encrypted Secret Chats do we see the self-destruct option that deletes the messages completely from both ends. Not anymore. A Mexican friend I was chatting with noticed she could actually delete my message history along with hers. She trolled me with a series of random words in normal chat and as I was about to ask her what she was talking about, she deleted them right before my eyes. I was incredulous. So I did the same thing as I will show in the pictures below:
When you delete a message, you delete it from your message history. This means that a copy still stays on the server as part of your partner‘s message history. As soon as your partner deletes it too, it’s gone forever. ~Telegram Privacy Policy
Deleting Telegram message history on both ends in normal chat
What you are looking at there is Plus Messenger, which uses Telegram API. I commenced my test by sending Marcela random numbers. My intention was to ask her to delete my messages so I could verify that indeed she could. Below is her end of the chat, as per her permission.
She taps on a message she would like to delete, bringing up options. She selects ‘More’ and then clicks on ‘Delete’. From there she can select either her chat history or mine. Whatever she deletes disappears from her end, and mine, very much like in Secret Chats
After instructing her to delete the random numbers, she takes screenshots as you can see. My messages disappear the same way hers did the first time she showed me. Please note that we were not using Secure Chats, otherwise you would have seen a ‘padlock’ icon on the header.
When I tried to do the same thing on my Android Telegram app, I could only delete the message history on my end. I used both Plus Messenger and the official Telegram app, updated to the latest version.
We are not sure whether this is an upcoming feature on Telegram, available on every iPhone. If so, it will be only a matter of time before Android users can also be able to delete their messages in normal chat. Average Telegram users with nothing much to hide rarely use Telegram’s Secret Chats. So, this goes out to iPhone Telegram users, have you by any chance noticed this feature?