Reminders and Timezone Accuracy on Telegram

Reminder times in @DoublegramScribeBot follow your personal timezone setting on Telegram. Set your zone in Settings, and phrases like tomorrow at 9 or next Friday at 3pm map to the correct local moment.

@DoublegramScribeBot does not guess your location from Telegram alone. The Telegram bot uses the timezone you configure to interpret words like tomorrow, morning, and at 3pm. Getting this right is the difference between a reminder at 9:00 AM your time vs someone else's.

Set your timezone

  1. Open @DoublegramScribeBot.
  2. Send /startSettingsSet Timezone.
  3. Tap the button showing your current local time.
  4. Scribe confirms with your time and zone name (e.g. Europe/Rome, America/New_York).

Timezone is personal — each member sets their own. In a group, your reminder uses your zone even if other members are elsewhere.

Timezone during first reminder

If you create a reminder before setting timezone, Scribe pauses and asks you to pick your zone first. After you select:

  1. Scribe saves the timezone.
  2. It tells you to retry your reminder request.
  3. Send the same reminder message again — it will not auto-create from the pending request.

How Scribe parses time phrases

When you write tomorrow at 9, Scribe:

  1. Reads your configured timezone
  2. Interprets tomorrow relative to your current local date
  3. Schedules 09:00 in that timezone
  4. Stores the exact moment for the notification cron
You sayWith timezone America/New_York
tomorrow at 909:00 Eastern tomorrow
Friday at 3pm15:00 Eastern on the next Friday
in 2 hoursTwo hours from now, local time
next Monday morningInterpreted as morning hours in your zone (Scribe picks a reasonable morning time if unspecified)

Default if unset: Scribe falls back to Europe/Rome internally until you pick a zone. Set yours explicitly if you are not in that region.

Confirmation shows local time

When Scribe confirms a reminder, the 🕐 line uses your timezone and locale (matching your Scribe language when possible). Always verify this line before relying on the reminder.

Notification timing

Scribe checks for due reminders about every 60 seconds. A reminder set for 10:00 typically fires between 10:00 and 10:01 in your scheduled timezone — not exactly on the second, but close enough for meetings, calls, and tasks.

Heavy Telegram rate limits may occasionally queue a notification briefly; Scribe retries on the next check.

Groups and topics

  • Group reminders fire in the group chat (or the topic where you asked)
  • Each member's timezone applies only to reminders they create — Marco in NYC and Luca in Rome each get correct local parsing for their own reminders
  • Tagged members see the notification when it fires; the scheduled time reflects the creator's timezone interpretation

After you move or travel

Update timezone in Settings before creating new reminders. Existing reminders keep the absolute time they were scheduled for — edit them if your offset changed significantly.

Troubleshooting

  • Reminder one hour off — Wrong timezone selected; fix in Settings and recreate
  • AM vs PM confusion — Say 3pm or 15:00 explicitly
  • Notification late by ~1 minute — Normal cron granularity
  • Date in the past rejected — Time already passed in your zone; pick a future slot

Quick reference

  • Set zone: Settings → Set Timezone
  • Personal — not shared in groups
  • Default: Europe/Rome until you change it
  • Checks: ~every 60 seconds

Related: learn about automatic replies for Telegram group admins in What Are Automatic Replies in Telegram Groups?