Plus Messenger

Review by eFreeware

Anyone who uses Telegram for both work and personal life eventually hits the same wall: one long list of chats where a family group, a project channel and a dozen bot threads all compete for the same space. You can pin a few, mute others, but the structure stays flat. Plus Messenger exists to fix that, and it is upfront about what it is: an unofficial messaging app that runs on Telegram's API rather than an official client.

It is developed by rafalense, has been on Google Play since February 2015, and is free to download. The app has more than 50 million installs and a 3.9 average from roughly 885,000 ratings, a healthy sample for a third-party client. It also carries ads and offers in-app purchases, so this is not a completely unmonetized project, and I would factor that into any comparison with the official app.

Tabs that split a crowded chat list

The core idea is that chats should not all live in one column. Plus Messenger separates them into tabs for users, groups, channels, bots, favorites, unread and the chats where you are an admin or creator. If you have ever scrolled past a dozen muted channels to reach a message from a colleague, that split is the feature that matters most, and it is the one I would judge the app on first.

The tabs are not fixed either. There are options to customize how they behave, and you can sort chats in different ways, so the arrangement can follow your habits rather than the other way around. The developer also raised the pinned chat limit to 100, which makes pinning a realistic way to keep a working set of conversations at the top.

For people who treat messaging as an inbox, the extras around the edges matter too. You can select all chats and apply an action across them, such as marking them read, muting or unmuting, or archiving. A chat counter keeps a running tally, and a quick bar lets you jump between conversations without going back to the list. None of this changes what messaging is, but it changes how much housekeeping it takes.

Several accounts and grouped categories

Multi-account support is the second pillar here: up to 10 accounts in one app. That is aimed at users who keep separate identities for work, a community they run, or a side project, and who would rather not install several clients or log in and out all day. If you only ever use one number, this feature will sit unused.

Categories take a different approach to the same problem. Instead of relying on tabs alone, you can build custom groups of chats around themes such as family, work or sports, and those categories can be saved and restored. That last part matters more than it sounds: if you rearrange a lot of conversations by hand, being able to back up the arrangement and bring it back later saves you from rebuilding it.

There is a limit bump for stickers as well, with favorite stickers raised to 20, and you can save and restore the app's settings alongside your categories. Taken together, these are the features that make the app feel like a workspace rather than a viewer.

Small conveniences while you type and send

Away from organization, the app adds a long list of small touches around composing and sending. You can forward a message without quoting it, and edit the message or its caption before it goes out, which is useful when a forward needs a line of context removed. Photo quality can be set before sending, documents can be saved under their original filename, and you can copy a selection of text from a message rather than the whole thing.

Notifications get some attention too. Floating notifications appear when a contact comes online or starts writing, and download progress is shown while files arrive. Both are the sort of details you notice only when they are absent.

The visual side is customizable as well. There are more than ten designs for message bubbles and check marks, a night mode you can toggle from the navigation menu, and options to use your phone's emojis and font. You can also hide your mobile number from the navigation drawer and settings menu, show your username in its place, and choose which items appear in that menu at all. Round video can be started with the main camera, and the most recent update reworks the round video recorder on a newer camera interface with audio and video sync improvements, which the developer marks as experimental.

What you need before you start

The important thing to understand is that this is not a separate messaging network. It is an unofficial client that uses Telegram's API, which means your conversations live on Telegram and the app is a different way of reaching them.

Beyond that, no setup process is laid out. What it does state is scale and reach. The app has been translated into more than 20 languages, and there are support groups in several languages, which is a meaningful detail if English is not your first language or if you need help in your own.

There is also a channel and a support group on Telegram, a Twitter account, and two companion theme apps, one for Plus Messenger and one for Telegram. Those are the developer's own pointers, and they are the places to look if you want themes beyond the built-in options or want to follow what changes next.

Who gets the most from it

The people who will feel the difference are those with a heavy, mixed chat load: several accounts, a pile of channels, a few groups they administer, and a desire to keep all of it sorted without constant manual effort. If your chat list is short and tidy, the tab system and the category tools have little to organize, and the app's advantages shrink toward the cosmetic.

The customization is a genuine draw for a certain temperament. If you like choosing your bubble style, your font, your emojis and what appears in the navigation menu, this app offers more of those decisions. If you prefer defaults and never open a settings screen, most of that list will pass you by.

I would also weigh the trade-offs honestly. It is a free app that carries ads and offers in-app purchases, and it is unofficial. A 3.9 average across a large number of ratings suggests a broadly satisfied but not uncritical audience. For someone who wants the extra control badly enough, those are acceptable terms; for someone who wants the plainest possible path to their messages, they are reasons to think twice.

A power-user client with strings attached

Plus Messenger is worth installing if your messaging has outgrown a single list of chats. The tabbed layout, the 100-pin ceiling, up to 10 accounts, custom categories you can back up, and the deep visual settings add up to a client that gives you more levers.

The caveats are just as clear. It is an unofficial client, it shows ads, and it offers in-app purchases. If you want a clean, no-frills way to read and send messages, this is more machinery than that job requires. If you run several accounts and want your chats sorted your way, the extra machinery is the whole point, and the install is easy to justify.

What's new in version 12.10.5.0

· [Experimental] New round video recorder (Camera2, higher resolution) with audio/video sync improvements. • Bug fixes and minor improvements.