Telegram FAQ

This FAQ provides answers to basic questions about Telegram.
Check out our Advanced FAQ for more technical information.

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Telegram keeps evolving and adding new features, so this document may contain outdated information. We expect to finish updating the FAQ, Bot Manuals, and other documents by the end of Summer 2022.

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General Questions

Q: What is Telegram? What do I do here?

Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security, it’s super-fast, simple and free. You can use Telegram on all your devices at the same time — your messages sync seamlessly across any number of your phones, tablets or computers. Telegram has over 700 million monthly active users and is one of the 10 most downloaded apps in the world.

With Telegram, you can send messages, photos, videos and files of any type (doc, zip, mp3, etc), as well as create groups for up to 200,000 people or channels for broadcasting to unlimited audiences. You can write to your phone contacts and find people by their usernames. As a result, Telegram is like SMS and email combined — and can take care of all your personal or business messaging needs. In addition to this, we support end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls, as well as voice chats in groups for thousands of participants.

Follow our Tips Channel to learn more about Telegram features.

Q: Who is Telegram for?

Telegram is for everyone who wants fast and reliable messaging and usernames, desktop apps and powerful file sharing options.

Since Telegram groups can have up to 200,000 members, we support replies, mentions and hashtags that help maintain order and keep communication in large communities efficient. You can appoint admins with advanced tools to help these communities prosper in peace. Public groups can be joined by anyone and are powerful platforms for discussions and collecting feedback.

In case you're more into pictures, Telegram has animated gif search, a state of the art photo editor, and an open sticker platform (find some cool stickers here or here). What's more, there is no need to worry about disk space on your device. With Telegram's cloud support and cache management options, Telegram can take up nearly zero space on your phone.

Those looking for extra privacy should check out our advanced settings and rather revolutionary policy. And if you want secrecy, try our device-specific Secret Chats with self-destructing messages, photos, and videos — and lock your app with an additional passcode.

We keep evolving — check out our Brief History of Telegram and follow us on twitter and Telegram to stay in touch.

Q: How is Telegram different from WhatsApp?

Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram is a cloud-based messenger with seamless sync. As a result, you can access your messages from several devices at once, including tablets and computers, and share an unlimited number of photos, videos and files (doc, zip, mp3, etc.) of up to 2 GB each.

Telegram needs less than 100 MB on your device – you can keep all your media in the cloud without deleting things – simply clear your cache to free up space.

Thanks to Telegram's multi-data center infrastructure and encryption, it is faster and way more secure. On top of that, private messaging on Telegram is free and will stay free — no ads, no subscription fees, forever.

Telegram's API and code is open, and developers are welcome to create their own Telegram apps. We also have a Bot API, a platform for developers that allows anyone to easily build specialized tools for Telegram, integrate any services, and even accept payments from users around the world.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Follow our Tips Channel to learn more about Telegram features.

Q: How old is Telegram?

Telegram for iOS was launched on August 14, 2013. The alpha version of Telegram for Android officially launched on October 20, 2013. More and more Telegram clients appear, built by independent developers using Telegram's open platform.

Q: Which devices can I use?

You can use Telegram on smartphones, tablets, and even computers. We have apps for iOS (9.0 and above), Android (6.0 and up), a native macOS app and a universal desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Telegram Web can also help to quickly do something on the go.

You can log in to Telegram from as many of your devices as you like — all at the same time. Just use your main mobile phone number to log in everywhere, your cloud chats will sync instantly.

The Telegram API is open for developers, should you want to build your own applications for other platforms.

Q: Who are the people behind Telegram?

Telegram is supported by Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai. Pavel supports Telegram financially and ideologically while Nikolai's input is technological. To make Telegram possible, Nikolai developed a unique custom data protocol, which is open, secure and optimized for work with multiple data-centers. As a result, Telegram combines security, reliability and speed on any network.

See also: articles about Telegram

Q: Where is Telegram based?

The Telegram development team is based in Dubai.

Most of the developers behind Telegram originally come from St. Petersburg, the city famous for its unprecedented number of highly skilled engineers. The Telegram team had to leave Russia due to local IT regulations and has tried a number of locations as its base, including Berlin, London and Singapore. We’re currently happy with Dubai, although are ready to relocate again if local regulations change.

Q: Will you have ads in my private chats and groups? Or sell my data? Or steal my beloved and enslave my children?

No. See this post for details.

Q: How are you going to make money out of this?

We believe in fast and secure messaging that is also 100% free.

Our founder and CEO Pavel Durov, who financed Telegram throughout most of its history, has outlined a strategy to make Telegram sustainable in this post.

While Telegram will introduce monetization in 2021 to pay for the infrastructure and developer salaries, making profits will never be an end-goal for us.

Q: What are your thoughts on internet privacy?

We think that the two most important components of Internet privacy should be:

1. Protecting your private conversations from snooping third parties, such as officials, employers, etc.
2. Protecting your personal data from third parties, such as marketers, advertisers, etc.

Telegram's aim is to create a truly free messenger, with a revolutionary privacy policy.

Q: What about GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in Europe on May 25, 2018. Since taking back our right to privacy was the reason we made Telegram, there wasn't much we had to change. We don’t use your data for ad targeting, we don’t sell it to others, and we're not part of any mafia family “family of companies.”

Telegram only keeps the information it needs to function as a feature-rich cloud service. For example, your cloud chats – so that you can access them from any devices without using third-party backups, or your contacts – so that you can rely on your existing social graph when messaging people on Telegram. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information.

You can use @GDPRbot to:

• Request a copy of all your data that Telegram stores.
• Contact us about Data Privacy.

Q: There's illegal content on Telegram. How do I take it down?

All Telegram chats and group chats are private amongst their participants. We do not process any requests related to them.

But sticker sets, channels, and bots on Telegram are publicly available. If you find sticker sets or bots on Telegram that you think are illegal, please ping us at abuse@telegram.org.

You can also use the 'report' buttons right inside our apps, see this post on our official @ISISwatch channel for details.

Note: If a scammer is pretending to be you, contact @NoToScam

Q: A bot or channel is infringing on my copyright. What do I do?

All Telegram chats and group chats are private amongst their participants. We do not process any requests related to them. But sticker sets, channels, and bots on Telegram are publicly available.

If you see a bot, channel, or sticker set that is infringing on your copyright, kindly submit a complaint to dmca@telegram.org. Please note that such requests should only be submitted by the copyright owner or an agent authorized to act on the owner’s behalf.

Q: Wait! 0_o Do you process take-down requests from third parties?

Our mission is to provide a secure means of communication that works everywhere on the planet. To do this in the places where it is most needed (and to continue distributing Telegram through the App Store and Google Play), we have to process legitimate requests to take down illegal public content (e.g., sticker sets, bots, and channels) within the app. For example, we can take down sticker sets that violate intellectual property rights or porn bots.

User-uploaded stickers sets, channels, and bots by third-party developers are not part of the core Telegram UI. Whenever we receive a complaint at abuse@telegram.org or dmca@telegram.org regarding the legality of public content, we perform the necessary legal checks and take it down when deemed appropriate.

Please note that this does not apply to local restrictions on freedom of speech. For example, if criticizing the government is illegal in some country, Telegram won't be a part of such politically motivated censorship. This goes against our founders' principles. While we do block terrorist (e.g. ISIS-related) bots and channels, we will not block anybody who peacefully expresses alternative opinions.

Q: My bot or sticker set was banned unfairly, what do I do?

If you think we banned your bot, channel, or sticker set for no apparent reasons, drop us a line at abuse@telegram.org.

Q: Do you process data requests?

Secret chats use end-to-end encryption, thanks to which we don't have any data to disclose.

To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption, Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data.

Thanks to this structure, we can ensure that no single government or block of like-minded countries can intrude on people's privacy and freedom of expression. Telegram can be forced to give up data only if an issue is grave and universal enough to pass the scrutiny of several different legal systems around the world.

To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.

Telegram Basics

Follow our Tips Channel to learn more about Telegram features.

Q: Who can I write to?

You can write to people who are in your phone contacts and have Telegram. Another way of contacting people is to type their Telegram username into the search field – you don't need to know their phone number to do this.

Q: Who can contact me?

People can contact you on Telegram if they know your phone number or if you message them first.

If they don't know your phone number, they can find you in these cases:

• When you both are members of the same group.
• If you set a public username. Others can use Global Search and find you by your username.
• If you opt-in to appear in the People Nearby section (this is turned off by default).

Q: How do I know who in my contacts has Telegram?

Your contacts, who have Telegram, are shown at the top of your Contacts. They also have pictures.

Q: How do I invite my friends?

iOS: The basic invitations are simple SMS messages. They will be charged as standard outgoing SMS by your carrier (unless sent via iMessage). Naturally, you have other options to bring your friends here. Try sending them a download link via any other messaging service: email, Facebook, WhatsApp, an actual telegram — you name it. The link: https://telegram.org/dl/

Android: Open the app menu (swipe right in chat list) > Invite Friends. Then choose an application via which you would like to send out invitations.

You can give your friends a t.me link with your username so that they can easily find you on Telegram even if they don't have your phone number.