Bugs and Suggestions

Regarding the issue »Message History is gone in Normal Groups«

If *your* message history is gone, you may ask the group owner or admins if they still have a copy (can access the message history). They then could export the chat history to HTML, for example, and send it to you.

If you are the owner - then, of course, there might be no option to retrieve the message history.

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Regarding the issue »Message History is gone after converting to a SuperGroup«

You can ask the other group members, admins & the owner if They still have the message history.
If that does not bring success, there may be another possibility:
Since messages in Normal Groups are stored in the users account, the messages sent in the group might still be stored on the Telegram Servers. If one is able to get the message IDs it might be possible to retrieve and save the messages. (This requires a lot of technical knowledge, time and the required tools and isn't really worth the effort unless those messages are of very high value.)

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Regarding the issue »Prevent Data Loss (History Gone) when converting a Normal Group to a SuperGroup«

For regular users: Make a HTML & JSON backup using the builtin export tool in Telegram Desktop. When the Messages get lost you still have a viewable copy - and might be able to re-import the saved Messages at a later point in time (that's what the JSON export would be useful for).

For advanced users: if the Telegram API allows it, you can extract the message history directly into a local database - and then import it into the group after conversion.

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VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Regardless of how you use Telegram - if you have Important Data that you Do Not Want to Loose - BACK IT UP REGULARLY!

Why you ask? Simple!

Telegram is a Messenger.
Telegram is NOT → a cloud storage solution, backup system, etc.
It has bugs. You are right now on it's bug - tracking site and can easily get an idea of how much there are. And Yes Telegram also has severe bugs such as this one:

Having that said. There's nothing that can't fail after all. So the more important something is to you - the more copies should exist of it 😉
I wouldn't want to write texts as these in a web field that discards them without warning at every occasion. So I write it elsewhere, keep a copy, and paste it into the web form.

Gaetano Apr 18, 2023

⪩ 𝓑𝓮𝓵𝓪 ⪨

What you describe isn't normally the case. Do you maybe refer to a group which was converted some time ago? I tested it right now with Telegram Desktop and could not reproduce what you said. In the first screenshot you can see the *normal group* message history (visible by the message ID shown at the lower right corner of each message). In the second screenshot you can see the *supergroup* message history (with the first message containing the timestamp at which the group was converted). Users added *after* the conversion can only see the supergroup messages - because they don't have a copy of the previous message history. This can be seen in the third screenshot. ————————————————————— Technical Information: Every user account has *one* database where messages are stored. It contains *all messages* from direct messages, be it with people, bots, or in normal groups. How normal Groups work: Group metadata is stored for each group. Messages are stored in each users *own* database. In other words: *each user* has a copy of all messages in the group - that's why you can delete messages "just for you" - because you only delete *your* copy of the message history. That's also the reason why new members often can't see older messages - although they should be able to (Chat history for new members = Visible). They just don't receive the message copies from other participants which is also a Telegram bug.

Hello Beta, thanks for your answers. I appreciate
The point Is that the desktop app easily allows me to access the "old" standard group chat and media. While the application, doesn't show all the media exchanged in the group. As you can see in the screenshot, this group contains a lot of photos/videos, but the media section shows ONLY the media shared starting from the day in which the group became supergroup.
There is no way to access the old media section from the mobile app. Only the desktop version could. Basically, this open task is what i am talking about: https://bugs.telegram.org/c/13092
Thank you again also for the technical information

Igor Antonov May 3, 2023

Hello! Was it possible to solve the problem? I have the same situation with you :(

Gaetano May 3, 2023

Igor Antonov

Hello! It Is still an open topic I Guess... You can access anyways the old data via desktop application, but It Is very annoying... I Hope they Will solve soon!

🌰『Ʀ⎋Ƀ』🌰 May 3, 2023

In the meantime on mobile, Telegram X is doing a better job presenting all your borked basic groups' data in separate linked chats.

You get two groups with working media tabs, but only the active supergroup appears in the chat list.

I'd still rather have it all imported into the new groups' histories and not have to visually search two group media histories for each affected one, but global text search does seem to be work for finding items in the inactive basic groups.

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