Telegram welcome message: how to set one up, who can edit it, and examples you can copy

A Telegram welcome message is a short pack of messages that a group or channel shows each new member when they join, and only that person sees it. Telegram announced it on 25 August 2026, with no bot needed. The owner, or an admin with the Manage Welcome Messages right, sets it under Edit > Welcome Message.

What is a Telegram welcome message?

A Telegram welcome message is Telegram’s own greeting for groups and channels: a “welcome pack” that appears for each person as they join and stays invisible to everyone else. Telegram’s announcement of 25 August 2026 puts it this way:

Before this, admins relied on a pinned post, which everyone sees and is easy to miss, or on a welcome bot that greets each newcomer in the chat itself. The native feature needs neither: “No bots or voodoo magic required.” Telegram Desktop added it in version 7.1 on 21 August 2026, and its empty welcome screen sums it up in one line: “Automatically greet new members when they join.”

How do you set a welcome message in a Telegram group or channel?

You set it from the chat’s profile: Telegram’s instruction is to “open its profile and select Edit > Welcome Message — and send some messages”. The steps are the same for groups and channels.

1. 1

   Update Telegram first

   Telegram says an outdated app shows a placeholder with an update button when it can’t display a new feature, so install the latest version before you start.

2. 2

   Open the welcome screen

   Tap the group or channel name to open its profile, then choose Edit > Welcome Message. Telegram Desktop shows a Welcome Message entry on the same edit screen; the unofficial Telegram Info channel described the path as Settings > Welcome Message.

3. 3

   Send the messages

   Type each part of your welcome and send it as you would a normal message. You can add several messages and attach a photo, video or file; in Telegram Desktop, each message takes one file.

4. 4

   Check the preview

   Rich formatting works here, including tables and inline media, though Telegram’s rich text editor that builds them is for Premium subscribers only, as of 11 October 2026. Telegram Desktop reminds you that “New members will see this message when they join”, so read it as a newcomer would.

5. 5

   Edit or remove it later

   In Telegram Desktop you can edit any message in the pack, or clear them all with Delete All.

6. 6

   Test it with a real join

   Ask a colleague to join through your invite link and tell you what they saw: existing members, you included, don’t get the pack.

Why is the welcome message option missing, or not showing?

Usually your account lacks the right to manage it or your app is out of date, and members see the message only if they join after it is set. Telegram’s announcement mentions only chat owners, but in Telegram Desktop’s source code the owner and any admin holding the Manage Welcome Messages right can manage the welcome pack.

• You are an admin without the right. Ask the owner to switch on Manage Welcome Messages in your admin rights. Telegram Desktop ticks it by default when you promote a new admin, but admins promoted before the August update may not have it: the unofficial Telegram Info channel reported that even admins with full permissions don’t get it by default.
• You aren’t an admin. In Telegram Desktop, the entry only appears for people who can manage the welcome pack.
• Your app is out of date. Update Telegram, then look again.
• A member says they saw nothing. Only people who join after it is set see it, so anyone who was already a member gets nothing. If their app is out of date, Telegram says it shows a placeholder with an update button instead of a feature it can’t display.
• You want a bot to handle it. In Telegram Desktop, a bot’s version of the right is labelled Send Welcome Messages. Bot API 10.3 added it as can_send_welcome_messages on 24 August 2026: “True, if the administrator can manage chat welcome messages or directly send them in the case of bots”.

What can a welcome message include, and what are its limits?

A welcome pack holds several messages with media and rich formatting, up to a cap that Telegram sets on its servers and doesn’t publish. This is what is known as of 11 October 2026:

Two things follow. Write a welcome that reads well without a name, and put the essentials in the first message, treating anything after it as optional reading.

What should a Telegram welcome message say?

A good welcome message answers four questions in a few lines: where am I, what do I do first, where are the rules, and how do I spot a fake. Keep it short enough to read on a phone without scrolling, well inside Telegram’s message length limits.

1. What this chat is for. One sentence on the topic and who it serves.
2. The one first thing to do. Read the pinned rules, introduce yourself or open the schedule. One action, not five.
3. Where the rules and help live. Link the rules post and name who answers questions by @username, so members can check it in Telegram’s search.
4. A safety line. Admins never send private messages first or ask for payment or login codes, followed by your official @usernames. The standing safety notice in the impersonation guide explains why that line matters.

Leave out anything that changes often, such as dates or prices: a welcome pack is easy to forget once it is set, and stale details mislead every new member.

Telegram welcome message examples you can copy

Here are five Telegram welcome message examples, one per type of community: each fits in one message, uses no placeholders and ends with a safety line. Each line is a full sentence, so it pastes cleanly into Telegram. Swap in your own names, links and @usernames.

A trading signals channel

Welcome to Example Signals.

Two to four trade ideas a day, posted here only.
Trading is risky: only use money you can afford to lose.

Start here: the pinned post explains how to read a signal.
Questions: @ExampleSignalsChat

Our admins never DM you first.
We never ask for money, wallet phrases or login codes.
Our only accounts: @ExampleSignals and @ExampleSignalsChat.

A course or cohort group

Welcome to the Spring Cohort group.

Ask questions, share your work and get announcements here.
First step: open the pinned schedule.
Rules: be kind, stay on topic, no promotion.

Admins never message you first.
Anyone offering “extra lessons” in DMs is not one of us.
Report them to @ExampleCourseHelp.

A product support group

Welcome to Example App support.

Check example.com/help first.
Ask in one message and include your app version.
Say what you expected to happen and what happened.
Bug reports: use the support bot in the pinned post.

Our team never sends private messages first.
We will never ask for your password or a login code.

A news channel

Welcome to Example Daily.

Three short briefings a day.
Mute the channel to read on your own schedule.
Tips: @ExampleDailyDesk

We never DM readers first.
We never run giveaways in private chats.
Our only channel is @ExampleDaily.

A local community group

Welcome to Example Street Neighbours.

This group is for people on or near Example Street.
Share lost and found, local events and recommendations.
Say hello with your first name.
Rules: no selling, no politics, be kind.

Our admins are listed in the group info.
They never DM you first or ask for money.

Native welcome message, welcome bot or Business greeting: which do you need?

Use the native welcome message for a plain greeting, a welcome bot when you need names or a captcha, and a Telegram Business greeting only for private chats with customers.

Rose’s documentation shows the bot approach: /setwelcome Hey there {first}! Welcome to {chatname}! greets each person by first name, and its captcha only works with welcomes turned on. A third party runs the bot, so give it only the rights it needs.

If you want buttons, Telegram’s 25 August announcement says developers can now put buttons inside a message and, paired with messages only one person sees, even use them as welcome messages. Telegram adds that “you will need to do some coding” and points developers to the Bot API changelog, so this route suits teams that run their own bot.

Telegram Business is a separate feature: its greeting messages, launched on 31 March 2024 for Premium subscribers, go to “users who contact you for the first time” in private chats. If you searched for a “Telegram greeting message” for a shop or freelance account, that is the one you want.

How do join requests and Guardian bots fit in?

Join requests and Guardian bots decide who gets in; the welcome message speaks to people once they are in. A carefully run group onboards people in this order:

1. A join request. Since November 2021, an extra invite link can require admin approval: admins see the applicant’s public profile photos and bio, then approve or dismiss the request.
2. A Guardian bot. Telegram’s 11 June 2026 update added Guardian bots for group chats, admin bots that process join requests and can screen applicants with a Mini App. In the Bot API, such a bot answers “approve” or “decline”, or “queue” to leave the decision to other admins. Telegram Desktop calls the admin right Process join requests.
3. The welcome pack. Once the person is in, they see your welcome message, and nobody else does.
4. Bot messages for one person. Since 14 July 2026, bots in groups can send messages only one person sees, such as greetings or replies to commands marked with a special icon, so a help bot can answer newcomers without filling the chat.

A small private group may need only the welcome message; a large public group that draws spam accounts gains a lot from join requests. For how groups, channels and discussion chats differ, see Telegram group vs channel, and for linking several chats, see Telegram Communities.

How do you reach members who joined before your welcome message?

You repeat the essentials where everyone reads them, because Telegram is explicit: “Only new members will see the welcome message.” Three habits close the gap:

• Pin a post with the same words. The rules, your official @usernames and the safety line, in one pinned post.
• Repeat a short reminder. Once a week is a sensible rhythm for a busy group; post much more often and members may start to ignore it. To choose the hour, see the best time to post on Telegram.
• Keep the wording identical. When the reminder, the pinned post and the welcome message match, a copy with a different link stands out.

With Telegram Premium, a scheduled reminder can repeat on its own: Telegram’s API documentation says Premium users can send repeating scheduled messages.

Putting the reminder on a schedule

Dripl doesn’t set Telegram’s welcome message, detect new members or greet a new member by name. It can post the reminder as an ordinary message that everyone in the chat sees, from a connected account that is allowed to post there, repeating every so many minutes, hours or days, until a date you set or with no end. Pick several groups and channels, and Dripl sends one copy to each, about 13 seconds apart; you can keep the text as a saved template of up to 4,096 characters.

In Dripl, each repeat notifies members like any other message, and {recipient_name} is filled in with the group’s synced name (or its @username or ID) in a group, never a new member’s. Each account’s hourly and daily caps in Dripl still apply: a copy over a cap fails, and that chat’s repeats stop until you retry it from the Errors page. The sent log shows every send and every failure, with Telegram’s error when Telegram refused it, such as a group where the account can no longer post. For more ways to keep groups on a schedule, see community management on Telegram.

• 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

• Community management

  Keep several groups on schedule from the admin accounts you already use.

  Learn more

• Telegram impersonation scams

  A Telegram impersonation scam copies your channel or admins to trick members. Learn to spot clones, report them and make your community harder to copy.

  Read the guide