How to send one message to several Telegram groups: the forward screen, channels, bots and the spam rules

To send a message to multiple Telegram groups, write it once and forward it: the forward screen in Telegram’s iOS, Android and Desktop apps lets you pick several chats, and each group gets its own copy. Telegram replaced broadcast lists with channels in 2015. Post only in groups whose admins and members want your message.

Can you send a message to multiple Telegram groups at once?

Yes: forwarding is the built-in way. The apps let you tick several chats on the forward screen, add a comment if you like, and send. Each chat still gets a separate message, because the API’s messages.forwardMessages method takes one destination per call.

Forwarding is one of five ways to reach several groups; which fits depends on how often you post and who runs the groups.

Which groups is it OK to post the same message in?

Post the same message only in groups you run, or whose admins have agreed to it, and only where it fits the group’s rules. Telegram’s Spam FAQ says an account becomes limited when moderators confirm reported messages were spam, and it names “posting spam in groups” alongside writing to strangers. It adds that “group admins can also report users who post spam in their groups.”

Groups get a little more room than private chats, but not much. Moderators are “more lenient when it comes to messages in groups”, the same FAQ says, yet anyone who sends spam or unsolicited advertising there will be limited. Telegram’s Terms of Service list sending spam among the things every user agrees not to do.

In practice, that means:

• Your own groups: fine, as long as the post suits each audience.
• Partner or community groups: ask an admin first, and keep the answer in writing.
• Groups you have just joined: read the pinned rules first; many ban promotion, links or reposts outright.
• Members’ private chats: leave them alone. Writing to every member one by one is the unwanted contact the Spam FAQ describes.

If the aim is to reach more people, a channel that people choose to join is the route that lasts.

How do you forward one message to several chats in the Telegram app?

Open the forward screen, switch to selecting several chats, tick each group and send. The steps below follow the source code of Telegram’s official Desktop, Android and iOS apps as of 11 October 2026; labels can change between versions.

1. 1

   Write the message once

   Draft it in Saved Messages, or post it in your own channel, and check the text, links and media there first.

2. 2

   Open the forward screen

   Long-press the message on iPhone, tap it on Android, or right-click it on Desktop, and choose Forward.

3. 3

   Switch to multi-select

   On iPhone, tap Select at the top right. On Android, long-press the first chat. On Desktop, right-click the first chat and choose Select a chat.

4. 4

   Tick the other groups

   Tap or click each further chat. Once one is ticked, a comment field and a send button appear.

5. 5

   Send, now or later

   A comment goes out as a separate message in every chat. Tap send and the post goes to every chat you ticked. Long-press the send button, or right-click it on Desktop, to send without sound or schedule it; Android and Desktop label these Send without sound and Schedule message.

When you forward by hand, Telegram also lets you hide the sender’s name or the captions on media, an option it added in August 2021. The guide to forwarding versus copying shows what readers see in each case. A few things can get in the way:

• Slow mode. A comment counts as a second message, and so does each extra message you forward. In a group with slow mode on, where you aren’t an admin, the Android app won’t add the chat and says: “Slow Mode is enabled. You can’t send more than one message at once.” Forward without a comment, or post there separately.
• Groups with topics. The Android and Desktop apps ask which topic to post in, so these groups can’t be ticked alongside other chats. Forward to each of them on its own.
• Paid messages. If a group charges Telegram Stars per message, the apps add up the cost across the chosen chats before sending, and Desktop then drops Schedule message from the send menu; see paid messages.
• A protected source. If the channel you post in first has Restrict Saving Content on, Telegram won’t forward from it and the API answers CHAT_FORWARDS_RESTRICTED. Draft in Saved Messages instead.
• Other clients. If your app doesn’t offer multi-select, forward to each chat in turn.

Does Telegram have a broadcast list?

No, not any more. Telegram used to have broadcast lists; on 22 September 2015 it launched channels and announced on its blog:

Some guides still describe a “Broadcast List” option, or a 200,000-subscriber limit on channels. Telegram’s current FAQ mentions no such feature; it calls channels “a tool for broadcasting messages to large audiences”. The figure of 200,000 is the member limit for a group, while a channel has no subscriber cap.

A channel is also something people join, and leave, themselves. The owner can add only the first 200 subscribers, according to the Channels FAQ; after that, people join through the channel’s link. A group that reaches 200,000 members can also become a broadcast group, where only admins post.

Should you post in one channel instead of many groups?

Often, yes: if you post announcements regularly, a channel with a linked discussion group does with one post what forwarding does with many. Since Telegram’s May 2019 update, “each new post from the channel will be automatically forwarded to and pinned in the discussion group”, and the Channels FAQ says comments on posts land there too. So don’t also send the post to that group yourself, or it appears twice.

A channel takes one discussion group, though, so this doesn’t fan a post out to many groups. Communities, added on 14 July 2026, link several channels, groups or bots together, and members can see the other chats and join them instantly. The announcement describes no way to post to every chat in a Community at once, so treat it as a way to organise chats, not to broadcast; see the guide to Telegram Communities.

Separate groups still make sense when audiences differ, such as regional groups in different languages or partner communities you don’t run; post there with each admin’s agreement.

What limits and errors will you hit when posting to many groups?

For user accounts, Telegram publishes no limit on how many groups you may post in per hour or per day. What you meet instead are each group’s settings and Telegram’s rate limits, with these errors from the messages.sendMessage and messages.forwardMessages reference pages and Telegram’s general error reference:

• SLOWMODE_WAIT_X: the group has slow mode on, and Telegram tells you how many seconds to wait before your next message there. Slow mode also blocks forwarding several messages to that group at once (SLOWMODE_MULTI_MSGS_DISABLED).
• CHAT_WRITE_FORBIDDEN: “You can’t write in this chat.” In a channel only admins with posting rights publish; in a group, admins may have turned members’ messages off.
• CHAT_SEND_PLAIN_FORBIDDEN: the group allows only some kinds of content, and plain text isn’t one of them.
• USER_BANNED_IN_CHANNEL and CHAT_RESTRICTED: the account is restricted, either across Telegram or by that group’s admins.
• FLOOD_WAIT_X: Telegram’s rate limit, which its error reference explains as “A wait of X seconds is required”; see what a Telegram flood wait means.

A message that goes through in nine groups and fails in the tenth has usually met one of these, or one of the rarer refusals on the same pages, such as a closed topic (TOPIC_CLOSED) or a group you haven’t joined (CHANNEL_PRIVATE). The full list, with what to do about each, is in permission errors.

Can a bot post the same message to all your groups?

Yes, if you build or run one, and only in groups it has been added to. A bot can’t join chats by itself: Telegram’s introduction to bots says a user must add it to a group or message it first, and in channels the API answers “Bots can only be admins in channels” (channels.inviteToChannel). That makes bots a fit for groups you run, not a way into new ones.

Telegram’s bot FAQ publishes these limits, as of October 2026:

• In a single chat, avoid more than one message per second; short bursts may pass, then come 429 errors.
• In a group, a bot can’t send more than 20 messages per minute.

These are ceilings, not targets. The same FAQ is frank about who bots suit: “there are no out-of-the-box ways to create a working bot if you are not a developer.”

How to send one message to several groups on a schedule

For a single future send, the forward screen may be enough: tick the chats, then choose to schedule the message from the send button’s menu, and each group holds the post in its own scheduled list. Since 19 November 2025 the schedule picker also offers Repeat. Telegram’s API documentation limits repeats to Premium users, to fixed intervals from daily to yearly, and to single messages, not albums. In the Android and iOS apps’ code, a repeat picked on the forward screen applies to every chat you ticked.

For any other interval, a name that changes per group, or a record of which groups refused it, you need a scheduler that sends from your account; the guide to choosing between native scheduling, a bot or a scheduler compares the options.

In Dripl, you pick several groups and channels as recipients from the chats the sending account is in, and Dripl sends each one a separate message, about 13 seconds apart. With Randomize seconds on, each copy also gets 1 to 30 extra seconds at random, so the gaps vary and neighbouring copies can swap order. Every copy goes from that one account, counts toward your plan’s monthly allowance and keeps to the account’s daily and hourly caps and minimum gap. A copy that would go over a cap fails rather than waiting: under the Conservative profile’s 25 messages an hour, a post to 40 groups sends at most 25 copies, and you resend the rest from the sent log later. If the post repeats, each group whose copy failed on a cap drops out of the repeat until you resend it.

{recipient_name} in the message is filled with each group’s name, so one message can greet every group by its title. Dripl doesn’t send silently or check posting rights ahead of time: a group where the account can’t post shows up as a failed copy with Telegram’s error, and a repeating post keeps trying that group until you remove it.

If you publish first in your own channel, a forwarding rule can copy each new post to your other groups and channels instead. Dripl checks the channel about every 15 seconds and sends each copy as a new message, without formatting such as bold text or text links; an album arrives as separate posts, and later edits in the channel aren’t carried over. If that channel has Telegram’s content protection turned on, Dripl skips its posts and sends nothing to any destination. Forward only content you own or have permission to share.

• Scheduler

  Send one-off and recurring messages to Telegram contacts, groups and channels at the time and in the timezone you choose, with templates and attachments.

  Learn more

• Auto-forwarding

  Copy new posts from a Telegram channel or group to your own as they arrive, filtered by keyword or media type, with links, mentions and captions changed.

  Learn more

• Scheduling Telegram messages

  How to schedule messages on Telegram in 2026: the app’s steps, Premium repeats, silent delivery, the limits and time zones, checked against Telegram’s docs.

  Read the guide

A checklist before you post in several groups

Run through these checks before the same message goes to more than one group:

• An admin of every group you don’t run has said yes.
• The post fits each group’s pinned rules and language.
• You know which groups have slow mode on or limit what members send.
• You tested the message in Saved Messages first.
• Groups with different audiences get their own version.
• After sending, you checked which groups refused it.
• Repeating posts go only to groups the account may still post in.