Telegram Brings Native Apple Watch App After 11-Year Absence

Telegram quietly shipped something most users probably forgot to want. After pulling its Apple Watch app years ago and leaving the wrist entirely to third-party clients, the company has released a fully native watchOS app, confirmed by CEO Pavel Durov on X on June 9, 2026.

The original Telegram watch app launched in 2015, making this an eleven-year arc from debut to discontinuation to revival. That gap matters because watchOS matured considerably in the interim, and what counts as a “basic” watch app today is a much higher bar than it was when the first version shipped.

The feature set clears that bar without much argument:

• View contacts and open existing conversations
• Send and receive text messages, listen to voice notes, share location
• View stickers, animated GIFs, and video playback directly on the watch face

Setup follows the same QR code pairing model Telegram uses for web and desktop sessions, which keeps the process familiar. Users with a cloud password enabled will need to enter it separately before the connection completes. If anything goes wrong during setup or the app behaves unexpectedly, a quick erase and reset of the watch clears most pairing issues cleanly.

A quiet rollout with no release notes

The oddest detail here is that Telegram’s App Store release notes make no mention of the watchOS addition at all. A company that spent over a decade without wrist support just shipped what is functionally a new product category for the platform, and the changelog is blank. That is either an oversight or a deliberate choice to let Durov’s social post carry the announcement instead of Apple’s distribution channel.

The app is rolling out now in all markets where Telegram is available. For anyone who already tracks steps on Apple Watch and keeps the device on throughout the day, having full Telegram access without pulling out a phone is a reasonable quality-of-life addition, not a dramatic reinvention.