The desktop Telegram app for Windows, macOS and Linux system has received a small new year update.
Headline change: videos shared in chats now start playing automatically. Yeah, I didn’t mistype that. The “good” news about this potentially very annoying behaviour is that it can be controlled.
An option to disable automatic playback for videos (and for GIFs and ’round video messages’, whatever they are) is available via Settings > Advanced > Automatic media download — so turn it off if you find it an annoyance!
On the subject of media, this popular messaging app now lets you ‘resume playback’ when watching lengthy videos or listening to long audio tracks shared in chats and channels.
This is a nice addition, especially if you’re the sort of person who regularly consumes media shared within the desktop app rather than shunting it to a more traditional browser tab.
Finally, Telegram v1.9.3 enables a system spell checker on all modern systems including — good news for a typo-prone messenger like me — Ubuntu & Linux Mint.
Alas, some of the new features recently added to the Telegram for Android and iOS apps are missing. There’s no cool ‘space cat’ chat backgrounds (even if set through the mobile app) and no “send when online” scheduling feature.
I’ve shown you how to install Telegram on Ubuntu before so I won’t repeat myself here. You can always download Telegram desktop for all major operating systems direct from the Telegram website.