Telegram is preparing a "Delete Gift" button: regular gifts will be able to be permanently deleted, not just hidden from the profile. Strings for this dialog appeared on the Telegram translations platform for iOS on October 20, and the deletion method was found in the Telegram for Android 13.1.0 beta from October 19. The server already accepts the request: on a test account, two gifts were deleted and cannot be restored. The method is not yet in the API documentation.
How it looks
On the translations platform for iOS, four strings appeared: the "Delete Gift" menu item, the dialog title with the same text, the "Gift Deleted" notification, and the warning itself: "Do you want to delete this gift? It will disappear from your profile and can't be restored". In other words, the gift disappears from the profile and cannot be restored.
In the Android beta, the same dialog is assembled from its own strings: a title, the warning text, and two buttons, "Delete" and "Cancel". Tapping "Delete" sends a single request to the server with one parameter: a link to the saved gift.
How deletion differs from hiding
It has long been possible to hide a gift from your profile. A hidden gift remains in your gift list with an unsaved flag, and you can return it to your profile at any moment. A deleted gift disappears from the list entirely.
The difference is visible in server responses. The client retrieves an account's gift list using the payments.getSavedStarGifts request. On October 20, on a test account, the same gift was first hidden, then deleted:
| Action | Gift in list | Gift message in private chat |
|---|---|---|
| Hide from profile | remains, with unsaved flag | remains, "saved" mark removed |
| Delete | disappears | remains, "saved" mark removed |
The message by which the gift arrived remains in the chat after deletion. It does not have a separate "deleted" flag: both hiding and deleting remove the same mark, and the two cases can only be distinguished by whether the gift is in the list. You can also delete a gift that was already hidden — in the test, such a gift was deleted.
Neither hiding nor deleting sends any notification to the account's open sessions: the change is only visible when the list is re-read.
What disappears with the gift
A regular gift can be converted to Stars within the first seven days. The server parameter stargifts_convert_period_max sets this period, currently 604,800 seconds. In the test, a 15-Star gift that could still be converted to 13 Stars was deleted. After deletion, the conversion offer disappeared from the message, and no mark indicating that the conversion had taken place appeared.
Therefore, if you want to get rid of a gift less than a week old, it is more profitable to convert it: conversion also removes it from your profile but returns Stars. Deleting makes sense for gifts that can no longer be converted. Only collectible gifts can be sold or transferred, and how to do this is covered separately.
Where it is already available
| Where | What | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Telegram for Android 13.1.0 beta, build 7227 | payments.deleteStarGift method in schema, layer 232 | October 19 |
| Telegram for Android 13.1.0 beta, build 7229 | in changelog: "do not reload the entire gift list when deleting" | October 19 |
| Translations platform, iOS | four deletion dialog strings | October 20 |
| Telegram Desktop, dev branch | no, schema on layer 231 | — |
| API Documentation | only gift collection deletion | — |
The method on core.telegram.org currently returns "Page not found". The payments.deleteStarGiftCollection described there is different: it deletes a collection into which you have grouped gifts in your profile, while the gifts themselves remain.
In the test, only regular gifts were deleted. Whether a collectible gift can be deleted in the same way, and whether the sender sees that their gift has been deleted, has not yet been checked.
