I’m working on a Telegram bot and ran into an interesting challenge. Let’s say there’s a user named Sarah Johnson in a group chat. She has a unique user ID and maybe a public username too.
Here’s the thing - different people in the group have saved her contact with different names. Person A might see her as “Sarah J”, person B saved her as “Work Colleague”, and person C knows her as “Tennis Partner”.
When my bot sends a message to the group and needs to tag Sarah, I want each person to see her mentioned using their own custom contact name. So person A would see the mention as “Sarah J”, person B would see “Work Colleague”, and person C would see “Tennis Partner” - all in the same message.
Is this possible with the Telegram Bot API? How can I make mentions appear differently for each group member based on how they’ve saved that person’s contact info? Any help would be great!
Nope, can’t do this with Telegram’s Bot API. Group messages go out the same way to everyone - there’s no way to customize mentions per user in a single message.
When you mention someone by ID or username, Telegram shows different names based on each person’s contacts, but that’s handled on their device. As a bot, you can only send one message version that everyone sees identically.
I ran into this same issue building company bots. My workaround was keeping a contact preference database and using generic descriptions instead of direct mentions. So instead of tagging Sarah, I’d write ‘the project coordinator’ or use initials that work in context.
You could also split it up - send general group updates without personalized mentions, then DM each person individually with their preferred references.
Hit this same issue when building notification systems for my team. Telegram’s API just doesn’t let you customize mentions per user in groups.
Here’s how I worked around it - don’t fight Telegram’s limits. Build the personalization outside the platform instead.
Set up workflows that store user preferences in a database, then send personalized DMs instead of group mentions. Or create smart systems that watch group activity and send custom summaries to each person.
I’ve automated complex messaging setups where users get totally different content based on their preferences and how they name contacts. The trick is handling all that logic separate from the messaging platform.
Latenode makes this workflow automation pretty simple. You can build flows that track preferences, monitor group events, and deliver personalized experiences across different channels.
totally get what ur saying! it’s tough with Telegram bots since they all see the same mention. unfortunately, the API doesn’t let u customize mentions for different users, and yeah, privacy restrictions make it even trickier. wish it was easier!