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Read and navigate

The compact chat list and conversation share a wide window, with the composer aligned below the conversation. F4 toggles the sidebar. Narrow windows show one pane at a time; F4 or returning to Chats reveals the list and retains the draft. A focus border and selection marker show where keys will act; Tab switches focus. Esc clears an explicit message selection before returning from a conversation to the list. Use j/k to select messages, arrows to scroll their rendered rows, and G to return to the latest page. While you read earlier messages, new arrivals retain your reading position and show a count instead of pulling the view down.

Chats with unread messages open at the saved incoming read boundary. A compact Unread messages separator stays at that entry point while receipts advance. Local pages appear provisionally; Telegram verifies the position before automatic receipts start. Use g u or :unread to locate the current first unread message again. Continue with j, Down or PageDown at the end of a page to load newer history without skipping the intervening messages. The footer shows continue and latest hints while more history remains. G explicitly returns to the latest page. A failed position lookup keeps the cache visible; retry with g u or choose G to leave that position.

g r / :read marks the entire target chat read. g U / :mark-unread sets Telegram's unread reminder, shown as a colored dot when there is no actual unread count. It does not change receipts already sent to other participants. Reopening and displaying that chat clears the reminder; ordinary visible-message receipts remain bounded. Commands retain the selected chat even if the list reorders while the command line is open.

[/] in the list switch folders. / filters titles in that folder. A configured chat alias opens a stable Telegram ID from All chats. g i shows the selected chat and folder IDs for configuration.

Cached content appears first. The connection state and loading indicator describe background reconciliation. Cached search and local preferences work without a connection; sending and server operations need an authenticated connection. The outgoing queue is bounded, and a failed send stays visible for retry.

The bottom statusline shows keyboard mode, account and connection information. Selection changes its contextual hints; INSERT identifies the live composer. Optional Ping/DC diagnostics and reading position are configured in Lua. Long errors expand above the bar so their cause remains readable without replacing the current mode.

Author, reply, body and media have separate visual rows. The current message and its active action have distinct markers. Full author names wrap. Messages have alternating backgrounds and no empty separator row by default; time, optional IDs, delivery and media state are shown in the bottom bar.

Read formatted messages

Telegram bold, italic, underline and strikethrough formatting is preserved, including nested styles and Unicode emoji. Inline code is highlighted; code blocks keep indentation and trailing spaces and show their language when given. Quotes have an indented rail. Code and text wrap to the available terminal width. Custom emoji keep Telegram's Unicode fallback; the terminal does not play their animation. Literal Markdown in an ordinary message stays literal.

Spoilers start covered with visible placeholders. Click their message row, or select the spoiler action with g n / g p and press Enter, to reveal or hide them. :spoiler does the same for the selected message. Telegram's collapsible quotes start with at most three rows; click the quote or press Enter on its action to expand/collapse it, or use :quote. The bottom bar shows the current action. Reply navigation retains its own action and click area.

Reveals are local to this account and process, and reset when the text or its formatting changes. Reply excerpts, chat previews, search results, pinned-message summaries, forwarding/deletion previews and notifications always cover spoilers. A message's link rows remain hidden until its spoilers are revealed, including hidden link targets. Explicit copy/edit still uses the full original text. Formatting is cached with messages; older cached entries acquire it when fetched again. Termgram reads server entities; creating formatted text in the composer is not part of this revision. Lua can bind spoilers and expand_quote in the conversation context.

Compose and reply

Click the composer or press i to write. From the chat list, i continues the current conversation, or restores the last chat for this Telegram account after restart. If it is unavailable, the highlighted chat is used; an empty list shows a synchronization hint. The composer shows a configurable ghost hint when empty, without a second permanent row repeating the send key. Enter sends; Shift-Enter or Ctrl-J inserts a newline. Bot commands are typed here, including their /; typing / at the start of a draft or @ after whitespace opens a suggestion popup listing the chat's bot commands and members. Tab and the arrow keys cycle candidates, Enter accepts the highlighted row, and Esc dismisses the popup. Ctrl-T opens the sticker panel for Recent, Favorites and installed sets; sending a sticker keeps the draft text and honors the reply. Each chat has its own local draft, including its text, reply target and cursor. Esc, account switches and normal restarts preserve it. Drafts are keyed by the Telegram user identity, so reusing a local account slot does not expose another account's draft. Background saves coalesce edits over 400 ms; normal exit flushes the final edit. A forced kill or power loss can lose edits not yet committed. These drafts are local to this installation; cloud draft synchronization is not part of this revision.

Select a message and press i or R to reply, or use R with no selection for the latest message. Clicking the composer preserves an existing reply draft without creating a reply from the message selection. The composer shows the target. Esc cancels the reply first, keeping text; another Esc returns to navigation. r opens a selected message's reply target. Clicking the indented quote also jumps there; Enter opens the selected reply action. Excerpts load from memory, then local cache, then a bounded background batch for visible missing targets. An unavailable original is distinct from an excerpt still loading. Edits and deletions update excerpts, including while a slower request is in flight. Failed sends keep their content and reply target; activating a failed outgoing message returns it to the composer for retry.

Edit a message or caption

Select a delivered message and press e or use :edit. Termgram fetches the current original and checks its author, media type and Telegram's server-provided editing time limit. Unsupported, forwarded or inline-bot messages show the reason in the footer. The server remains authoritative about chat permissions.

The editor identifies the chat and message, and the footer shows EDIT plus the effective keys. Enter saves; Shift-Enter or Ctrl-J adds a newline. Esc/Ctrl-C closes the editor while keeping the edit. e or :edit resumes the saved edit when the selection is on its message; on another message it edits that message instead, replacing an untouched saved edit, while a modified one is kept and reported. Ctrl-D in the editor or :edit-discard discards it. One edit is kept per chat alongside its normal draft, reply and files. It survives account switches and normal restarts, using the same local draft save lifecycle.

Failed saves keep the input. A changed server revision is reported as a conflict; it never silently replaces your edit with new server text. To start from that new original, discard the local edit and reopen it. Telegram does not provide an atomic compare-and-set edit, so an external edit in the brief interval between verification and save can still race. Saving an empty caption removes the caption; a text message must remain nonempty. Media replacement is not part of this editor.

Formatting before/after the changed range is retained with UTF-16 offsets; formatting spanning the full replacement adjusts its length. Partly changed entities and changed hidden-link/emoji targets are removed instead of attached to unrelated text. Editing several separated ranges may remove formatting between the first and last change. Server edit updates follow the existing ordered synchronization stream and update cached replies. The selected message's edit time appears in the bottom bar.

Delete a message

Select a delivered message, then d or :delete. A fresh server snapshot shows the chat, message preview and available scopes. Cancel is initially selected; choose a scope with Up/Down or k/j and press Enter to submit. Ordinary chats may offer only-for-me and, when permitted, for-everyone deletion. Supergroups use Telegram's for-everyone deletion; Saved Messages offers only-for-me. Service messages are not supported by this action. The server enforces final permissions.

Termgram checks the exact peer, message revision and permissions again before submitting. A changed message invalidates the review; close and reopen it. Telegram does not offer an atomic revision-checked delete, so a remote change between the last check and the RPC can still race. Errors keep the message and reset the prompt to Cancel. Esc closes the prompt; if already submitted, the request keeps running and reports its outcome in the footer. Confirmed deletion passes through the ordered sync stream and removes cached content, search results and reply previews before the corresponding sync checkpoint is stored.

Copy message content

Select a delivered message and use y or :copy / :copy text for its text or caption, without sender labels or timestamps. Y / :copy link asks Telegram for its message link, including a topic/thread when available. Links are available for supergroups/channels, including members-only private links; ordinary private chats and basic groups have no exportable message link.

Copy checks the latest message and chat permissions online. Protected text is not copied; empty text and unavailable messages leave the clipboard unchanged. The captured message remains the target while the request runs, even if you navigate elsewhere. One preparation and one clipboard write may run at a time. The footer reports errors and uses your configured copy key in selection hints.

Local text writes use the native clipboard in the background. Linux retains its clipboard owner while Termgram runs; pasting after exit depends on the desktop's clipboard manager. WSL falls back to Windows PowerShell when needed. SSH sends Yazi's OSC 52 request to the attached terminal, and tmux also receives a terminal copy request. Native failure likewise falls back to OSC 52. Terminal delivery has no acknowledgement: “Clipboard request sent” means the terminal still needs to accept it, and tmux/terminal clipboard settings can prevent it. Copy payloads are limited to 100,000 UTF-8 bytes and never written to logs or command arguments.

Forward and Saved Messages

Select one delivered message and press f, or enter :forward <chat>. Tab uses the same cached chat names, IDs and Lua aliases as :chat; saved is the current account’s Saved Messages. Enter on an incomplete command chooses no destination. After choosing a destination, a preview shows its name/ID, account, source and latest message. Press Enter to forward, or Esc/Ctrl-C to cancel. These are the send/cancel actions in the configurable forward context.

g S / :save prepares the same preview addressed to Saved Messages. g s / :saved opens that conversation without forwarding anything. It is identified by the authenticated account, so it works without a matching recent-chat title. An already cached Saved Messages dialog can be opened offline.

Native forwarding keeps the original attribution and media and leaves existing source/destination drafts untouched. Current protection is checked before the preview and again before sending. Service messages, expiring media, protected content or server restrictions produce an error. Remote edits/deletions invalidate an open preview. The server remains authoritative about destination permissions; an edit between the final check and submission can still race.

Errors keep the review and the same Telegram deduplication ID for retry. Esc before submission discards the review; after submission it closes the view while the request completes. If that background request fails, f resumes its review. Reviews and their retry IDs currently last for this process; cancelling a review and starting another creates a new forwarding intent. This entry point forwards one selected message, not a whole album or multiple selections. The destination picker selects chats; it does not select a specific forum topic.

Files, links and mouse input

Use :attach <paths...> to prepare files in the chat draft. Plain pasted paths remain text by default. Ctrl-O in the composer opens attachment review for format, preview and removal; Enter in the composer explicitly sends, using its text and reply target for the first file. See Attachments.

Click media to select it, then o for a larger preview or i to reply. Use g n / g p to select actionable entries, then Enter to activate. Telegram URL entities appear as selectable link rows, including hidden-text links. Public t.me, telegram.me, and tg://resolve chat/message links open in-app; private t.me/c and tg://privatepost links work for known groups. Other HTTP(S) links open through the operating system. Invite links show a confirmation preview; broadcast-channel links remain unsupported. URL, web-view, callback and game bot buttons are supported; payment, password-gated, contact/location and peer-selection buttons identify that a graphical client is required.

Mouse support is optional: click a chat to open it, click a message or action to select it, right-click a message to reply, and scroll the pane under the pointer. Clicking the chat list or timeline leaves input mode and keeps the draft. Settings/account rows are also clickable. Keyboard equivalents remain available.

Settings and accounts

s opens automatic update checks, release channel, Enter download behavior, and message IDs in the bottom bar. c and C open color pickers. These persist without rewriting Lua. Esc dismisses an overlay, returning focus to the previous view. ? shows effective bindings instead of a static cheat sheet.

a opens the account picker; select an account or its add row and press Enter. F2 cycles existing slots and F3 adds a slot, up to eight. Only the active account has a running network worker. Sessions, messages, media, and color overrides are isolated. Switching resets searches and conversation views while retaining each account's local drafts.

To open a new private chat, use :open @username, then i to compose. Use :info to inspect the chat's identity and write restrictions. See Chat discovery and details for invitations and permissions.

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