Telegram away message without Premium: the free ways on Android

Telegram’s own away message is a Telegram Business feature, and Telegram put Business inside Premium. If you don’t pay, Android still leaves you two ways: connect a reply bot to your account, or let an app answer from Telegram’s notification, only for the people you choose.

That second route is Android only. iPhones don’t let one app read or answer another app’s notifications, so on iOS your choices are Premium or a bot.

What is a Telegram away message?

It is a reply Telegram sends for you while you can’t answer. In the Telegram Business announcement of 31 March 2024, Telegram describes it as a message sent “when your business is closed or while you’re on vacation”. It sits next to a greeting message, which goes to people who write to you for the first time. Both live under Settings > Telegram Business.

It is a setting inside Telegram itself, so nothing else has to run on your phone for it. Keep that in mind when you compare the options further down.

Do you need Telegram Premium for an away message?

Yes, as far as we can find. The same announcement says the Business features come with a Telegram Premium subscription, and we found nothing on telegram.org saying the away message itself became free (checked November 2026).

Something adjacent did change this year. Telegram’s Bot API changelog for version 10.0, dated 8 May 2026, says Telegram “allowed Business Bots to manage user accounts without a Telegram Premium subscription”. In plain terms, a bot can now work for a free account. The away message setting is still a Premium thing; a bot that sends something similar no longer is.

How do I set an away message in Telegram Business?

If you already pay for Premium, it takes a minute:

1. Open Telegram, go to Settings and tap Telegram Business.
2. Open the away message option and type what people should see, such as when you’ll be back.
3. Choose when it applies, then save and ask someone to message you to check it.

Telegram moves menus around between versions. If Telegram Business isn’t where you expect, look through the Telegram FAQ or update the app first. On a free account you won’t get the away message, whatever the menu looks like.

Can I auto-reply on Telegram for free with a bot?

You can, with a trade-off worth thinking about first. Telegram lets business users connect bots that “process and answer messages on their behalf”, and when you add one you decide which chats it may touch: for example, leave out everyone in your contacts, or let it answer only new chats. Since the May 2026 change, that no longer needs Premium.

What Telegram doesn’t give you is the bot. You have to find one that sends away replies, and we don’t point to any here. Whoever runs that bot sees the chats you hand it, on their server, under their terms. For a shop answering strangers about opening hours, that is often fine. For a person who wants their sister and their boss to get a polite “driving, back soon”, it is a lot of trust to give someone you’ve never met. Read the bot’s privacy policy before you connect it, and keep it away from your contacts if the setting allows.

How do I reply only to certain people on Telegram, on Android?

Message Alarm is a free Android app that rings a loud alarm, even when your phone is on silent, when an important message arrives from a person or with a word you choose. It also has an optional auto-reply: one fixed message you write, sent through the Reply button on Telegram’s own notification. That is the same button you’d use to answer from the notification bar yourself, so no bot is connected to your account.

1. Install Message Alarm, allow Notification access, and add Telegram as a watched app.
2. Under Only alarm for, type the names of the people who should get the reply, exactly as Telegram shows them in its notifications.
3. Turn on Auto-reply and write your Reply message, for example: Driving now, I will answer after 6.
4. Ask one of those people to send you a message, then open the chat and check that your reply is there.

The names part matters more than it looks. The rule decides who gets the reply, so a rule with no names and no words would answer everyone whose message reaches your notification bar. You can use Message contains instead of names, if you’d rather reply only to messages with a word like “urgent”.

A few more things we’d rather you hear now than discover later:

• Matching messages also ring the alarm, unless you mute alarms. If you only want the reply, mute them.
• Inside a group, the reply goes into the group. A rule that names your friend will answer her in the family group too, where everyone reads it.
• If a Telegram notification has no Reply button, nothing is sent and nothing is counted. A lock-screen notification that hides the message text often has no Reply button.
• The free plan sends 2 auto-replies a week, reset every Monday. After that, matches still ring but nobody gets a reply.

That last limit is why we see this as a tool for a handful of people, not a whole contact list. If you want the alarm half on its own, our guide to a Telegram message alarm covers ringing on silent for one person or one word.

Which way should you use?

Our take: if you run a business on Telegram, pay for Premium. The away message is built for that job and it lives inside Telegram, with no extra app to keep alive. If you’re a person who mostly wants a few people to know you’ll get back to them, the notification reply is the smaller step, and nothing joins your account.

What none of these can do

None of them answer calls. The away message and the notification reply both send the same fixed text, so a question like “are you coming tonight?” gets the same reply as “call me now”. A bot might do more, depending on who built it.

The phone-based route has its own weak spot: Android itself. Some phones stop apps in the background to save battery, and a stopped app answers nobody. Message Alarm’s Fix background issues screen walks you through battery and auto-start settings. Our Xiaomi guide shows why this matters so much on some brands. If Telegram’s own notifications arrive late, the reply will be late too, because it can only answer what the notification shows.

And if you’re looking for ready-made wording, the busy reply examples are written for chats with real people rather than customers. The same set-up works for Signal if its notifications show a Reply button.

The free plan watches 3 apps, rings up to 7 app alarms a day and 35 a week, and sends 2 auto-replies a week. Weekly limits reset on Monday. Smart Tray, saved and deleted messages, notification history and the smart features are free without a limit. Your messages are checked on your phone and never uploaded, and the app doesn’t ask for contacts, SMS or location permissions. It needs Android 7.0 or later; there is no iPhone version.