How to send a secret message in a Telegram group

Sometimes you want to tell one person something in a busy group without opening a separate chat. Other times you want to say something to the whole group without your name on it. These are two different problems.

This guide shows how to send a locked message that only one person can open, how to post anonymously, and where Telegram’s own features fit. All three bots here are made by the same maker who runs this site, so keep that in mind when you read the recommendations.

Which tool hides your message, or your name?

WhisperLock hides what you say; AnonSay and Anon Inbox hide who said it. A whisper is one message in a group that only one named person can open. AnonSay posts to a group without your name, and Anon Inbox lets people write to you without theirs. A Telegram Secret Chat protects a whole two-person conversation.

How to send a hidden message in a Telegram group

To send a hidden message in a Telegram group, type @WhisperLockBot, the person’s @username and your text, then tap the card. WhisperLock is an inline bot: Telegram lets you call it from the message field of any chat, so you do not add it to the group. Only that person and you can open the text.

1. Open the group. Any group or private chat works, even one the bot has never joined.
2. Type the bot’s username, then the recipient, then your text. For example: @WhisperLockBot @friend meet me at 8, don't tell anyone.
3. Tap the card that appears above the keyboard. The bot posts a locked message card into the chat, addressed to @friend.
4. Let the recipient tap it. The text opens in a popup that only @friend and you can see. Everyone else still sees the sealed card.
5. Check who opened what. Open a private chat with the bot and send /peek. It shows your 3 most recent whispers, their age and how many times each was opened.

Note: The recipient needs a public @username. The bot matches the tag you type to the person who taps the card. If the person has no username, ask them to set one in Telegram’s settings first.

Make a whisper expire

Add 1h, 24h or 7d before your text: @WhisperLockBot @friend 24h meet me at 8. After that time the card stops opening, even for the recipient. Without an expiry, the card stays in the chat and the recipient can reopen it. A whisper is not deleted after it is read.

Free limits and Pro

The free plan gives you 3 locked messages per day, with up to 200 characters each. Pro is 150 Stars (about $3), paid once, per user. It gives unlimited messages and up to 1,000 characters. Send /pro in the bot to buy it. To compare every bot’s Pro upgrade, see the Pro page. New to Stars? Read how to pay a bot with Stars.

How to post anonymously in a Telegram group

To post anonymously in a Telegram group, use AnonSay: send /anon and your text, and the bot deletes your message and reposts it as “Anonymous”. An admin must give AnonSay permission to delete messages. Members never see who posted, but admins can use /reveal, so it is not anonymous to admins.

A whisper always shows who sent it. If the point is that nobody knows it was you, use AnonSay in the group.

1. Ask an admin to add AnonSay with delete permission. The bot deletes your original message and reposts it. Without permission to delete messages, it asks to be made admin, because your message would stay in the chat under your name.
2. Post with the command. Send /anon the coffee machine is broken again. The bot deletes your message and posts the text as “Anonymous”.
3. Or post from a private chat. Send /start to the bot in a DM, pick one of your groups, then type your message. It posts there anonymously. For another post, pick the group again.

Warning: AnonSay is anonymous to members, not to admins. An admin can reply to an anonymous post with /reveal. The bot then sends that admin a hashed sender id and your first name in a DM. An admin can also use /ban to block your future anonymous posts in that group. The bot keeps your identity in its data so these commands work.

If the group’s admins are the people you want to hide from, AnonSay is the wrong tool.

Free groups get 20 anonymous posts per day, 10 per hour per person, and 500 characters per post. Pro is 150 Stars (about $3) per group, paid once. It removes the post cap and lets admins set a custom prefix with /alias.

How to get anonymous messages with a link

Anon Inbox gives you a personal link: people who open it can write to you without showing who they are. Send /link to the bot to get it, share it in a group, bio or story, and read the messages in the bot. Senders can write up to 1,000 characters per message.

1. Get your link. Send /link to the bot in a private chat. With /url myname you can add a link with your own name in it.
2. Share it. Post it in a group, a bio or a story. /story gives you caption text.
3. Read and reply. Messages arrive in the bot without the sender’s identity. Tap Reply to answer. The sender sees your name on the answer, because the link is yours.
4. Block abuse. The Block button silently stops a sender from reaching you again.

Senders can write text only, up to 1,000 characters per message and 20 messages per hour. The free plan gives 10 private replies, counted over the past 24 hours. Pro costs 49 Stars a month (about $1) or 150 Stars once (about $3), per user, and adds unlimited replies and sender hints. A hint is never the sender’s full identity.

Can you hide a message in Telegram without a bot?

Telegram has no built-in way to send one message inside a group that only one member can read. A Secret Chat is a separate, device-specific chat between you and one other person. Spoiler formatting hides text in the chat until someone taps it, and any member can tap it.

Secret Chats. Telegram’s FAQ describes a Secret Chat as one where “only you and the recipient” can read the messages. You start one from a person’s profile, and it is device-specific: it is not stored in the Telegram cloud. It protects a whole two-way conversation with an extra layer of encryption between the two devices, but it is a separate chat, not a way to send one private line inside a group. Menu names differ between apps, so look for “Start Secret Chat” in the person’s profile menu.

Spoiler formatting. You can select part of your text and mark it as a spoiler. Telegram then hides it in the chat, the chat list and notifications. But a reader taps the spoiler to reveal it, and nothing limits who can tap. It stops a glance, not a curious member.

What do these bots store?

WhisperLock, AnonSay and Anon Inbox store message text on the server, and none of them is end-to-end encrypted or blocks screenshots. Each bot stores the data its features need: the whisper text so the card can reopen, the sender id so /reveal works, and incoming messages for your inbox.

• WhisperLock stores the text you write, with the sender id, sender name, target and reveal count, so the card can open again when the recipient taps it. It also stores your user id, username and Pro status. Only the recipient and you can see the text.
• AnonSay stores each post with the chat, message id, sender id and text, so /reveal and /ban work. The id shown to admins is hashed with a salt that is unique to each group. Posts are deleted automatically after 30 days.
• Anon Inbox stores incoming messages with the owner id, sender id and text, plus a count of link visits and your block list. The owner never sees the sender’s identity on the free plan.

Tip: Treat the expiry and the small audience as your real controls. Do not send anything that would hurt you if it got out.

Common problems with hidden messages

The first thing to check when a WhisperLock card will not open is the @username. It must match the recipient’s current public username, so a person with no username, or a new one, cannot open the card. Ask them to set a username in Telegram, then send a new whisper.

• No card appears when I type @WhisperLockBot. Check the spelling and add a space after the username.
• The recipient taps the card but cannot open it. The @username you typed must match their current public username. If they changed it, send a new whisper.
• “Limit reached”. You used your 3 free whispers for today. Wait until tomorrow or upgrade with /pro.
• My /anon message stayed in the chat under my name. The bot has no permission to delete messages. Ask an admin to give it that right. See how to add a bot and give it admin rights.