Telegram Premium: One-Way Last Seen

From mutual to one way

On Telegram, last seen and read times are mutual. Hide your last seen and you stop seeing other people's. Telegram Premium last seen works differently: it loosens one side of that rule. You keep your own last seen and read times hidden, and still see them for the people who share theirs. How the mutual rule works is covered in hiding your last seen and why hiding read times hides theirs.

There is an important boundary. If the other person has hidden theirs, Premium does not show it. The subscription removes the cost of hiding your own; it is not a key to what others have hidden.

Who it actually helps

Read times are a one-to-one chat feature. Who has seen a message in a group works under different rules; reading the ticks is covered in what the checkmarks mean, and checking when someone read you is in seeing when a message was read.

Setting it up

1. Open Last Seen & Online under Privacy and Security.
2. Choose Nobody or My Contacts. As a subscriber you keep seeing other people's.
3. Turn on Hide Read Time on the same screen. The other person no longer learns when you read their message.
4. Add exceptions. People who should still see you go in Always Share With; anyone to hide from completely goes in Never Share With.
5. Check in a one-to-one chat. Long-press your own message to see the read time of someone who shares it.