Edit or delete a broadcast you already sent
How to fix the text or remove the message from everyone who already received it. How long it takes, what the progress bar shows, and what Telegram will not allow.
Sent a broadcast and spotted a typo? Changed your mind and want the message gone? You can do both after sending — Craft walks through every recipient and edits or removes the message in each chat.
How to do it#
- Open Automations → Broadcasts and click the broadcast — its report opens.
- At the bottom of the report, in the "Sent message" block, there are two buttons: - ✎ Edit — change the text in messages already delivered; - 🗑 Delete for everyone — remove the message from recipients' chats.
- Pick an action and confirm. A progress bar appears: "Updating the text for recipients — 1,240 of 5,181".
You can close the window — the work runs on our servers and continues on its own. Come back later, open the report, and you will see the outcome: "Text updated for 5,170 of 5,181".
How long it takes#
Longer than the original send. Telegram processes edits and deletions more slowly than new messages, so:
| Audience size | Rough time |
|---|---|
| 500 people | under a minute |
| 5,000 people | 3–7 minutes |
| 15,000 people | 10–20 minutes |
That is normal. Watch the progress bar rather than the clock: while it moves, everything is fine.
Do not press the button again. If an operation is already running, Craft will not start a second one — it shows how much is done and offers to wait or stop the current run. Repeated presses used to launch parallel passes that fought each other: the deletion removed messages that the edit had not reached yet.
The "Stop" button#
While an operation runs, "Stop" sits next to the progress bar. It halts processing of the remaining recipients. Anything already processed is not rolled back — if 2,000 messages were deleted, they are gone. The report states honestly how much was done before the stop.
What the outcome tells you#
When it finishes you will see a line like:
Text updated for 5,170 of 5,181 · failed: 11 · Telegram says: message to edit not found
- failed — Telegram refused for those recipients. Its own reason is shown next to the count.
- skipped — recipients that do not need processing: their message is already deleted, or the broadcast predates this feature and Craft does not know which message to edit.
The most common reasons for a refusal:
- the person deleted the message or the whole chat with the bot — there is nothing left to change;
- the person blocked the bot — the bot no longer has access to that chat;
- more than 48 hours have passed (deletion only, see below).
Telegram limits you cannot work around#
A bot can delete its own messages only within the first 48 hours. That is Telegram's rule, not a Craft limitation. If the broadcast is older than two days, "Delete for everyone" warns you: some recipients will keep the message, and nothing can be done about it. Editing the text has no time limit.
Media cannot be replaced. Telegram does not allow swapping a photo or video in an already sent message. Only the text (the caption, for a message with an image) and the buttons change. If you need a different image, delete the broadcast for everyone and send it again.
Text length depends on the message type. Plain text allows 4,096 characters, a caption under a photo or video allows 1,024. If the new text is longer, Craft will not save it and tells you how much to cut: silently truncating the text for thousands of people would be worse.
A persistent menu keyboard is not affected by editing — it lives separately from the message.
After deletion#
Once the messages are removed from recipients, the report shows a "Messages deleted" mark with the date, and the edit and delete buttons disappear — there is nothing left to change. The broadcast record and its statistics (delivery, clicks) stay: the report does not go anywhere.
One thing worth noting: the ✕ in the broadcast list removes only the record and its report, while the messages stay in people's chats. To remove the messages themselves, use "Delete for everyone" in the report first.
If something goes wrong#
If the progress bar freezes for more than ten minutes, write to support. We get an automatic alert about stalled operations, but an extra signal never hurts: the report shows exactly which recipient it stopped on.