In the past few weeks, Telegram’s user base has skyrocketed, thanks to the backlash over a WhatsApp privacy policy update that catalyzed a user exodus to ‘more secure’ platforms such as Telegram and Signal. Telegram, in particular, has recorded massive growth lately, and it now appears that the company wants to make the process of switching platforms even easier with a chat migration tool. 

Earlier today, Telegram rolled out an update (v7.4.0) on iOS whose changelog mentioned the presence of a chat migration tool. Titled ‘Moving Chat History from Other Apps and More Privacy’ on the App Store. The listing described it as a tool that will let users move their message history from other apps such as WhatsApp to Telegram. 

Telegram chat history migrate

Telegram quickly pulled the chat migration feature with a new update

Interestingly, Telegram pushed a new update minutes later that removed any mention of the chat migration tool in the changelog. Plus, it also withdrew the mention of another feature that would allow users to delete messages, groups that they created, secret chats, and call history on both ends (sender as well as recipient) without leaving a trace. 

Now, the folks over at 9to5Mac managed to try Telegram’s short-lived chat migration feature and detailed the relatively simple process of exporting chats from WhatsApp to Telegram. Here’s how 9to5Mac described the feature in action:

“Using WhatsApp as an example, it doesn’t take much effort to migrate conversations from one app to another. Once you’re in WhatsApp, you just have to enter the “More” menu in a chat and then choose the “Export Chat” option. WhatsApp will generate a ZIP file with the entire conversation that can be exported to Telegram through the iOS Share Sheet. Telegram will ask which contact or group you want to associate that chat to, and then the messages will be synchronized there for both you and the other person. All imported messages are labeled as such.”