Premium Subscribers Gain Access to Telegram Stories Feature

Telegram has introduced its highly anticipated Stories feature, but currently, it is exclusively accessible to Premium users, according to a statement made by the company on Twitter. CEO Pavel Durov had previously disclosed this forthcoming feature, which provides users with greater control compared to Stories on other applications. It allows individuals to choose the audience who can view their stories and determine their duration before they vanish. Several Twitter users have also confirmed witnessing the arrival of this new feature.

Similar to the same feature in Facebook Messenger, Telegram stories appear as expandable bubbles at the top of the conversation list. Users can choose to make them publicly visible, as well as many other options: contacts only (with exceptions), selected contacts or close friends. You can add captions and links and tag others. Users can also share pictures and videos from the front and rear cameras at the same time, just like the messages found on BeReal.

If you don’t want to see a particular contact’s messages, you can move them to the “Hidden” list in their contacts section. In addition to this, users can choose when their stories expire. You can set them to disappear in 24 hours like other services, but also have them disappear within 6, 12 or 48 hours. Stories can even be displayed permanently on your profile page – while you choose the privacy settings for each post.

Everyone can see stories, and users can post reactions and replies. However, you must be a Telegram Premium subscriber to post Stories. To do this, you’ll need the latest version of Telegram (it might not be rolled out in your region yet), and you’ll need to pay $4.99 per month for a Premium subscription – with a discount available online. Premium, which arrived last year, also offers benefits such as 4GB downloads, faster uploads, unique stickers, audio-to-text transcriptions, double follow limits and more.