Send When Online holds your message until the other person next opens Telegram, then delivers it. They read it while they are already looking, which is the best moment any message can arrive.
It sits on the send button's hidden menu alongside silent sending and scheduling, and unlike those two it depends on a privacy setting — which is why it is sometimes not there at all.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Queue a message for the moment somebody comes online.
- check_circle Find it again before it goes, and change your mind.
- check_circle Work out why the option is missing from a particular chat.
- check_circle Choose between this, scheduling and simply sending.
Held on the servers, not on your phone — you can close the app and the message still goes at the right moment.
person_search Waiting for a moment rather than a time
Scheduling picks a clock time and hopes it suits. This picks the event instead: whenever that person next appears, the message is delivered. For somebody whose hours you do not know, that is a better guess than any hour you could choose.
Until it goes, the message sits in the chat's scheduled area, visible only to you. You can edit it, reschedule it, or delete it and nobody will ever know it existed.
To the recipient it looks like an ordinary message that arrived just now. There is no marker saying it waited, which is worth knowing in both directions.
This, or one of the other two
Three ways to get a message to somebody, and the question each one answers.
| The question it answers | Where it works | Where it lets you down | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Send when online | "Whenever they are next looking" — for when you need a reply and do not know their hours | One private chat, one person. It arrives at the top of their attention instead of buried under whatever came in overnight. | No group equivalent exists, because a group has no single presence to wait for. It also disappears from the menu whenever Last Seen is hidden in either direction. |
| Schedule for a time | "At nine tomorrow" — for when the hour itself is the point | Everywhere, including groups and channels. A reminder, a birthday, a post that should land in working hours. | You have to know what the right time is. For one person on unfamiliar hours that is a guess, and a guess is what the first row removes. |
| Send silently | "Now, but do not wake them" — for when the message has no claim on their attention | Everywhere, and it is the better default for anything that does not need a reply. | A message that never rings can sit unread for a day. If it does need answering by the morning, schedule it with its alert instead. |
Pick by what you are waiting for: a person, a clock, or nothing at all.
settings Using it
- Write the message Text or media; both work.
- Hold the send arrow Press and hold on a phone, right-click on desktop.
- Choose Send When Online The message moves to the chat's scheduled area.
- Find it again from the calendar marker Beside the input field. Edit, reschedule or delete it there.
- Forget about it Nothing needs to stay open; the servers hold it and send it.
This page is a feature built on presence. The curriculum step is presence itself: what your online status discloses, how the reciprocal setting works, and why hiding yours changes what you can see.
At a glance
- 1Send When Online
Queue a message for when they next come online.
- 2Change your mind
Find it in the scheduled list and edit or delete it.
- 3Missing option?
It only appears when their last seen is visible to you.
Updated
