Products · Product
Telegram
Raised as a usability problem by 147 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2013–2026), in 108 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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- 4App responds extremely slowlyUnreviewed
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Secret chats are hard to start and easy to missUnreviewed
20132026- Secret chat can't be started from desktop and the initiator's screen spins until the other phone accepts2026-02-09
- Secret chats are hard to use and cannot reach offline addressees2026-02-09
- Secret chats can't be enabled on desktop or in group chats, and don't sync from phone2026-01-25
End-to-end encryption is not enabled by defaultUnreviewed
20132026- E2EE is not default, unavailable for groups and desktop, so users can't easily use it2025-04-03
- E2E encryption must be manually enabled per chat and is poorly designed2024-08-26
- E2E encryption is hidden in obscure menus and not available on all platforms2023-04-27
Apple Watch app is slow and needs iPhone nearbyUnreviewed
20132026- Official Telegram Apple Watch app is slow and doesn't work without iPhone nearby2021-07-18
- Telegram's client API is one of the worst the commenter has seen, hard to build clients with2020-08-22
- Telegram's UX is fairly poor compared to KakaoTalk across features2018-02-07
App responds extremely slowlyUnreviewed
20132026- App is slow because the user's account sits in a distant data center2026-07-15
- App is extremely slow to respond when used2021-10-04
- Official client is laggy and slow to interact with2021-07-19
Cloud search is very slow for messages older than monthsUnreviewed
20132026- Search freezes when searching old posts beyond the server's chat history cache limit2025-04-03
- Searching older chat history is slow and not snappy on older Android phones2024-08-26
- Hard to find things in a huge shared heap of stored messages2022-04-12
Chat list reorders constantly, causing misclicksUnreviewed
20132026- Redesign moved items around, breaking muscle memory; chat list fails to load until switching tabs2026-03-20
- Chat list reorders constantly, causing misclicks on the intended chat2022-11-28
- Archived chats appear at top of main chat list, cluttering it and confusing the user2019-10-25
Can't mute group chats while keeping private chat alertsUnreviewed
20132026- Group chats send notifications every few seconds, spamming the user2021-06-25
- Can't mute group chat notifications while still getting private chat notifications, forcing multiple accounts2020-12-23
- Secret chat notifications don't show sender or message content, so users can't tell who messaged2020-02-05
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- App is slow because the user's account sits in a distant data center2026-07-15
- Redesign moved items around, breaking muscle memory; chat list fails to load until switching tabs2026-03-20
- Dark patterns pushing users, plus lost chat history and photos with no support2026-03-20
- Secret chat can't be started from desktop and the initiator's screen spins until the other phone accepts2026-02-09
- Secret chats are hard to use and cannot reach offline addressees2026-02-09
- Secret chats can't be enabled on desktop or in group chats, and don't sync from phone2026-01-25
- Features are hard to discover; some are undocumented and only mentioned in old release notes2025-12-17
- Links open in a WebView lacking autofill and content blockers, so pages are cluttered again2025-11-04
- Encrypted chats are not the default and don't work across devices2025-10-14
- Long journal entries get split into parts without premium2025-10-01
- Reactions take a long time to load when adding or viewing them2025-07-30
- Emoji search uses keyboard language instead of the system language, ignoring English settings2025-05-19
- Permission dialog reappears every time the app opens despite limited photo access2025-05-03
- E2EE is not default, unavailable for groups and desktop, so users can't easily use it2025-04-03
- Search freezes when searching old posts beyond the server's chat history cache limit2025-04-03
- Encrypted chats have terrible UX and need both parties online to start2024-08-28
- Encryption button is hidden; takes several taps through menus to start2024-08-27
- Searching older chat history is slow and not snappy on older Android phones2024-08-26
- End-to-end encrypted chats lose most features and don't sync across devices2024-08-26
- Messages often show 'this message can not be decrypted' and become unreadable2024-08-26
- E2E encryption must be manually enabled per chat and is poorly designed2024-08-26
- End-to-end encryption is hard to use: limited to 1:1 chats, missing on some clients, terrible UX2024-08-26
- Clumsy UI, slow view switching, worse search, bloated margins and padding, no smooth animations2024-08-26
- Secret chats are tied to one device, so users lose them when switching devices2024-08-25
- Calls are less reliable than in Messenger, per the commenter's experience2024-08-25
- Signing up automatically messages everyone in your contacts that you joined2024-08-25
- Calls drop unpredictably, history and search are unreliable, and group chats are awkward2024-08-25
- Account creation is too much for average people to process2024-08-25
- End-to-end encryption only works in 1-on-1 secret chats, with terrible UX2024-08-25
- Private chats are effectively unusable across multiple devices or in group chats2024-08-25
- Editing the huge source file in Android Studio lags, with keystrokes taking seconds to register2024-08-04
- Users must manually opt into encrypted chats, so private conversations are easy to miss2024-06-07
- Secret Chat is buried in a dot menu and unavailable on desktop or web2024-05-10
- Discovery settings switch themselves back on after reinstalling, with no confirmation prompt2024-02-20
- Can't tell whether a poll allows multiple choices and can't un-vote2024-01-28
- The interface is very confusing to use2023-12-03
- Update gets stuck so user misses messages2023-11-30
- App feels buggy with weird UX decisions and lacks polish2023-11-30
- No way to browse channels, so people must use third-party sites to find them2023-11-30
- Encrypted chats have a bad interface and only work on one device2023-11-28
- Writing posts in the message input is painful and sometimes messes up the text2023-10-24
- Replying to messages lands in forward mode; reaction emote can't be changed and default setting is hard to find2023-10-13
- UI is overloaded with useless features, making it cluttered2023-10-13
- Hard to filter useful comments from noise, so the user keeps deleting the app2023-09-21
- E2E encryption is hidden in obscure menus and not available on all platforms2023-04-27
- Can't disable messages from unknown contacts, so spam keeps arriving2023-04-22
- Input field gets stuck floating mid-screen after switching apps2023-04-22
- Secure chats get picked up by random devices, so messages are often invisible2023-04-22
- Typed emoji shortcuts produce wrong emoji and oversized animated emoji send unexpectedly2023-02-18
- New-device login alert can't be deleted remotely and must be removed manually on each device2023-02-16