Telegram accessibility on iOS, and Swiftgram's take at it

By Amir Soleimani, 3 January, 2025

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

The developer of Swiftgram addressed my bug reports about accessibility issues affecting Telegram for iOS and other Telegram clones. Here's what he said in their Telegram group, as well as his beta build. You'll find the link to his message in the group at the bottom of the message. I encourage you to comment there.
........
First of all, this is a bug of Telegram app and it should be addressed by Telegram developers. It's their job. Main way to report such bugs is to use https://bugs.telegram.org
There's also an "Accessibility" label for such issues. Of course, all the fixes will be available in Swiftgram.
With that being said, I've quickly popped up VoiceOver and can confirm that Share Sheet is completely inaccessible. That's really bad.
Telegram uses non-standard frameworks and ways to work with native UI. I can't say it's bad, Telegram engineers are definitely smart people and know what they're doing. However, this also impacts default Accessibility and most of the UI elements must be labeled manually.
As an exception, I've decided to take a look in what I can do. I've spent about 10 hours to make Share Sheet accessible via VoiceOver. I was able to add some labels and map some buttons, but I think I've failed, cause overall experience is bad. But that's my skill issue.
If using outside of the app, it's possible to focus on the sheet and start iterating through chats. After selecting the chat, it may be a bit tricky to find Comment and Send button (because VoiceOver keep scrolling your chats). I suggest to navigate to Cancel button at the very bottom and go up. Switching different rotors (Headings, Containers, Words, etc.) may help to get to the right part of the Share Sheet.
If using inside app, it becomes a mess - VoiceOver reads elements that are behind Share Sheet. I've tried different approaches and just have no idea how to make it work properly, without redesigning Share Sheet and changing it in place of the app.
Latest Beta build 11.6 (159) includes these changes. You can download using https://beta.swiftgram.app
P.S. Known VoiceOver limitations:
1. Selecting topics in groups does not work
2. Switching accounts does not work
https://t.me/swiftgramchat/51300

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Comments

By Amir Soleimani on Friday, January 3, 2025 - 15:05

The latest Swiftgram beta build resolves the long-standing Share Sheet glitch with VoiceOver where no contact name gets read. I suggest that people try the build via TestFlight for feedback. If you're on Telegram, please also join the Telegram group to provide feedback there. The more we comment and show interest, the higher the chance of getting the developers to resolve the remaining issues, like VoiceOver getting stuck in groups and channels while scrolling around messages.

By Kushal Solanki on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 02:57

Hi.
I have just joined the beta for this swift gram app.
Would love to know more about this app and how it impoves the accessibility of using elegram with voiceover.

By Amir Soleimani on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 04:51

This is a Telegram client based on official Telegram AI, and receives updates regularly. At the time of this writing, it improves the accessibility of the share sheet for VoiceOver. With the official Telegram client or other third-party clients, VoiceOver reads nothing in the share sheet.

By Kushal Solanki on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 08:29

Great to see you have developed this app using the Telegram UI.
Tested the share sheet feature out.
It's great.
Thanks so much for fixing this.
Looking forward to more accessibility improovments.

By Amir Soleimani on Saturday, January 4, 2025 - 08:45

I suggest commenting in the Telegram group so that the developer can see our interest - he's not here. I suggest asking for fixes for VoiceOver getting stuck while scrolling in channels and groups. He says that Telegram uses a custom message type, and that's why VoiceOver can't scroll messages properly with left/right swipes.

By Nut on Monday, January 13, 2025 - 10:20

I just gave Swiftgram a quick try and I found it not to be any different from the official Telegram app. For instance the buttons at the top of the chats list remains more or less inaccessible.

By Amir Soleimani on Monday, January 13, 2025 - 11:12

@Nut did you expect Swiftgram to be more accessible? That's not what I said. I said they improved the Share Sheet accessibility, something Telegram still can't handle. But other issues stand unless we ask Swiftgram devs to improve them.

By Nut on Monday, January 13, 2025 - 12:57

I think asking Swiftgram to improve accessibility in general is a good idea given how inaccessible the official Telegram app is and I don't think there's really any accessible Telegram clients for iOS that I know of; that are as good as Unigram on PC at least.

By Amir Soleimani on Monday, January 13, 2025 - 13:32

Exactly. iOS severely lacks in this regard. I suggest that people join Swiftgram's Telegram group and directly ask the devs about accessibility improvements.

By Chris on Monday, January 13, 2025 - 23:49

I'm trying to log into the app on my Mac, but I can't type the code. Selecting the text option doesn't bring up an edit field to type. I was hoping this would be a decent Telegram client for macOS as well. What's the best way to contact the developer?

By fatih on Saturday, November 22, 2025 - 19:10

Hello all,
As of today, the latest version of swiftgram no longer allows typing messages with voiceover, voiceover simply doesn't detect the type a message edit field and voice message button, even using the screen recognition function doesn't work, you have to use the reply function from the rotor in order for the message filed to appear, and send button is not visible either, you have to turn on "send with return" option from swiftgram category of settings in order to send messages.
This is very frustrating and I have reported this to swiftgram developers via this chat:
https://t.me/+KKU4VRytd6gxNTQ6
If you are experiencing the same problem or just want to support, you can write on there as well.
I hope they'll fix this asap, because if they don't it'll not be any different than the standard Telegram client, I installed this for accessibility reasons, but if it isn't accessible, then I might as well go with Telegram.

By Amir Soleimani on Saturday, November 22, 2025 - 19:28

The official Telegram app has also suffered various accessibility regressions recently. And since Swiftgram uses the same framework, it's not surprising to hear that accessibility has suffered there. Honestly I've given up on Telegram accessibility on iOS altogether. Telegram, the company, doesn't care, and Swiftgram devs can do nothing about it either.

By Joseph King on Saturday, November 22, 2025 - 21:18

I think this is not only the case with apps like the official telegram app or something like swiftgram, but I believe it applies to *Any* apps that use the telegram framework, including nicegram and any other apps. Shame bright guide hasn't been updated in a few years. That one was actually quite good for what it did.