Telegram Bot API adds rich messages of up to 32,768 characters

What this means for you

A normal Telegram message holds about 4,000 characters. Rich messages can be eight times longer and look like a small web page, with headings, lists, tables and many pictures inside. A tool could post a full newsletter or article to your channel as one message instead of splitting it up.

The details

• Method: sendRichMessage with chat_id (user, supergroup or channel @username) and rich_message (InputRichMessage). Exactly one of markdown, html or blocks must be set; media lists files referenced by tg://photo?id=, tg://video?id=, tg://document?id= and tg://audio?id= links.
• Limits: up to 32,768 UTF-8 characters, 500 blocks (including nested blocks, list items and table rows), 16 nesting levels, 50 media attachments and 20 table columns.
• Editing: editMessageText accepts rich_message.
• Broadcasting: sendRichMessage supports allow_paid_broadcast like other send methods.
• Media rights: if a block contains media, the bot must have the right to send that media in the chat.
• Releases: 10.1 introduced rich messages; 10.2 added InputRichBlock* classes and InputRichMessage.media; 10.3 added button blocks, expandable quotations and document blocks.
• Unchanged: sendMessage text is still 1 to 4,096 characters, and media captions 0 to 1,024.

What to do next

• Business owners: Nothing.
• Marketers and agencies: Long posts for Telegram channels no longer have to be split. Ask whether your scheduler supports rich messages.
• Developers: Route Telegram posts over 4,096 characters to sendRichMessage, and validate against the 32,768 character, 500 block and 50 media limits.