Telegram gets self-destructing photos and videos feature

Snapchat seems to have become an inspiration for the other messengers in the market. We say this as many messengers such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram mimicked the disappearing message feature that Snapchat introduced.

The latest messaging app to join the list is Telegram. The app has received an update taking it to the version number 4.2 that comes with the vanishing message feature among others. The update that was rolled out over the weekend brings disappearing photos and videos in the one-to-one chats, claims the official Telegram blog.

Telegram carries the credits for being one of the first messaging apps to bring about end-to-end encryption. Until now, the app had the secret chat functionality. It was also offering the self-destructing message feature but the same was restricted to the private chats alone.

Notably, the secret chats on Telegram are different from the usual messages. The regular messages on Telegram can be synced across different devices such as desktop and mobiles. On the other hand, the secret chats can be hosted only on the respective devices used by the sender and recipient and don't appear on Telegram cloud too. This is similar to the Secret Conversations feature in Facebook Messenger.

With the new self-destructing feature, even the regular chats will vanish after the preset time. All you need to do is just set a timer from the clock icon in media picker so that the photos and videos will disappear.

Besides the self-destructing photos and videos feature, the latest Telegram update brings an improved photo editor, lets users speed up the downloads from the public channels and the ability to add a bio to the profile in Settings.