The publication “Durova’s Code” reported on new features discovered in the beta version 12.5 of the Telegram messenger for iOS. In one of the early builds, two experimental functions were noticed at once, which are still undergoing internal testing and have not yet appeared in the stable version.
The first innovation is related to improving the privacy of personal chats. Users now have the ability to prohibit their contacts from copying, saving, and forwarding content from private correspondence. This includes text, images, and other attachments that could normally be forwarded to third parties. Activation occurs through the contact profile: in the “Edit contact” section, the “Prohibit copying” option now appears. The exact technical details of this protection’s implementation are still unknown, but it has been confirmed that the tool is unstable and is in the early testing stages.
The second experiment is a smart date-based reminder system . Telegram automatically analyzes message text and recognizes time expressions like “today,” “tomorrow,” or specific dates (e.g., “March 15”), then prompts the user to create a corresponding reminder with a single tap. If a reminder is initiated in a group chat, the notification is moved to the “Favorites” section, making it easy to avoid missing it even if notifications from the group are muted or after leaving it.
It is not yet clear when these features will become available in the official Telegram release and appear on all platforms, including Android and the web versions. Experimental features may change or be refined in future beta builds.
Telegram has also been actively developing other features in the past: in early 2026, it introduced an intelligent AI service for automatic summaries for long publications and Instant View pages, and the iOS interface received Liquid Glass visual effects for a more pleasant experience.
In addition, the platform conducted a large-scale content cleanup, restricting access to hundreds of thousands of groups and channels. Between February 15 and 17, 2026, about 566,000 communities were blocked, which was part of the messenger’s efforts to combat illegal and dangerous online activity. The data on the blocks was published on the official Telegram resource.
