How to make a Telegram chat screenshot that looks real

What you need

A contact or group name, profile photos if you want them, and a short script. Fakeconvo's Telegram chat generator draws the chat in the Telegram style for iPhone, is free, needs no account and puts no watermark on the PNG. Your photos and text stay in your browser.

Five steps to a realistic Telegram chat

1. Set up the chat. Under People, type the other person's name; the header shows it with a round letter avatar in their colour, or click the round button before the name to add a profile photo. Under the name, Telegram says "last seen recently"; type "online" or "last seen at 21:40" in "Status under the name" to change it. For a group, turn on "Group chat", type the "Group name" and use "+ Add person": the header then reads "4 members" (you count too).
2. Write the messages. Under Messages, use "+ From …" for the others and "+ From me" for yours. Yours are light green on the right, theirs white on the left, over Telegram's green patterned wallpaper, and the last bubble in a row gets the tail. In a group, each person's name appears in their own colour on their first bubble, with a small avatar beside their last one.
3. Set the check marks. Telegram has no "delivered": a message shows one check until the other side reads it, then two. Pick "Sent" or "Read" in each of your messages' "Status", or turn off "Read receipts" to keep one check everywhere.
4. Add replies, reactions and photos. Pick an older message in "Reply to" and Telegram quotes it inside the top of the bubble, with a coloured bar and the sender's name. Under "Reactions", tap an emoji to add it inside the bubble. "+ Photo" sends an image, with an optional "Caption", and "+ Date / notice" adds a centred line such as "Lena joined the group".
5. Set the look and export. Turn on "Dark mode" for Telegram's dark blue theme, set the "Status bar time" and battery, and download the PNG at 2x or 3x, as the phone screen or the whole chat.

Details that make a Telegram chat look staged

Real Telegram chats come in short bursts: three quick lines instead of one paragraph, a sticker-style emoji reaction instead of an answer, a reply to something said a few minutes ago. One long, perfectly punctuated block of text reads like an email.

Watch the times and the ticks. The chat opens with "Today", and a pause of an hour or more puts the time in a small centred label, so keep a live conversation a minute or two apart. Set the status bar clock a little after the last message. Two checks on a message the other person "last seen" hours before is the kind of mismatch people spot.

Use it the right way

Telegram screenshots are for videos, memes, stories, app and bot mock-ups, and lessons, such as showing a class what a fake "crypto giveaway" message from an admin looks like. Do not put words in the mouths of real people, do not make a chat that looks like proof of something that never happened, and do not use one to scam, bully or embarrass anyone. Our acceptable use page has the details.