Which Telegram feature for finding nearby users was removed in 2024?

Telegram’s feature for finding nearby users was called People Nearby.

Introduced in 2018, People Nearby let users discover Telegram accounts that had enabled visibility in the same physical area. It also supported Groups Nearby, allowing location-based public groups to be found by people close to them. Telegram described the feature as a way to exchange contact information without manually sharing phone numbers.

The feature depended on location data and an opt-in visibility setting, but it became associated with spam, scams, bots and other unwanted activity. Telegram removed People Nearby during 2024. Pavel Durov said the feature was not especially popular and created problems with bots and scammers. Telegram subsequently emphasized business discovery and moderation improvements rather than person-to-person location discovery.

A common mix-up is Live Location, which shares a user’s position inside a chat for a limited period. People Nearby was different: it searched for nearby Telegram users who had chosen to make themselves visible. Nearby Chats and Find Friends were not Telegram’s official names for this feature.