10 Life Hacks Every Telegram User Should Know

Telegram is one of the most popular WhatsApp alternatives . Telegram supports messaging between individuals and groups, and also has social media-like channels where you can post messages to thousands of subscribers at once. In this article, I’ll focus on Telegram as a messenger, as that’s how I use it most often. I’ve learned a lot over the past ten years of using the app, and I’m here to share the best Telegram life hacks you should know.

You need to manually enable end-to-end encryption.

Unlike Signal or WhatsApp, Telegram doesn’t use end-to-end encryption by default . End-to-end encryption ensures your messages can’t be read by anyone without access to your device or the recipient’s device, and it has now become the industry security standard for messaging apps. You can enable end-to-end encryption in Telegram, but it requires several additional steps, and even then, the implementation isn’t very user-friendly. Secret Chat is Telegram’s name for end-to-end encrypted messages, and to access it, follow these steps:

1. Open Telegram and start a chat with a contact.

2. In the chat window, click on the contact’s name at the top.

3. On the next page, click More and select Start Secret Chat .

4. Now you need to wait for the recipient to connect to the network and accept your request to start a secret chat. After that, the conversation will be end-to-end encrypted.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to repeat this process with each of your contacts, resulting in two separate chats for each contact (a secret chat and a regular chat). Another limitation is that you can’t access secret chats across multiple devices. They’re only available on your phone and the recipient’s phone and aren’t visible in the Telegram desktop app. This is great for security, but not so great for convenience.

Don’t forget to delete your old profile photos.

When you add a new profile photo to your Telegram account, the previous photo isn’t automatically deleted. This means your contacts can still access your profile and see your old photos. To fix this, open the Telegram app and go to the Settings page (located in the bottom bar on iOS and hidden under the three-line menu on other platforms). Tap your profile photo, select “Edit,” and delete any photos you don’t want to keep.

Turn off unwanted notifications

Telegram often sends spam notifications. By default, you receive a notification every time one of your contacts joins Telegram, which quickly becomes annoying. You can disable these unwanted notifications by going to Telegram Settings > Notifications & Sounds and disabling “New Contacts.” You can also disable other types of notifications you don’t need, including group chats, stories, channels, reactions, and more.

Change the automatic deletion time for your Telegram account.

Telegram is quite aggressive about deleting inactive accounts. It will automatically delete your account if you don’t use the app for six months. This won’t bother regular users, but it’s recommended to customize this period to suit your needs. Telegram allows you to set the auto-deletion timer for any period from 1 to 24 months, so you can choose the option that works best for you. Go to Telegram Settings > Privacy and Security > When Away to make changes.

You can block calls in Telegram.

Telegram supports voice and video calls, which is fairly standard for messaging apps. However, unlike most competitors, Telegram allows you to completely block voice and video calls . Simply go to Telegram Settings > Privacy and Security > Calls and select “No One.”

Increase the security of your Telegram account.

Adding a few extra layers of security to your Telegram account is always a good idea. The app supports two-factor authentication and passwords, and you can enable both features by going to Telegram Settings > Privacy and Security . Both options are located at the top of this page.

Reduce your data consumption.

One of Telegram’s best features is the granular control it offers over various settings, including how much data it uses. This is great for users with limited internet connections. These settings can be accessed under Telegram Settings > Data & Storage . Navigate to the Cellular Usage and Wi-Fi Usage sections to adjust the amount of data used. If you set data usage to Low , Telegram will compress media files to save bandwidth. On the same page, you can also disable automatic downloading of photos, stories, videos, and files. Alternatively, by tapping any of these settings, you can disable automatic downloading based on the chat type. For example, Telegram allows you to disable automatic downloading of photos, videos, files, and stories only from group chats or only from channels. This way, it will still automatically download media sent in one-on-one chats, but not in group chats.

You can also go to the “Data & Storage” settings page and enable “Use less data for calls.” This will compress the audio slightly, but can help you stay within your data limit.

Automate the built-in power saving mode

Telegram has a built-in power saving mode that saves battery life by reducing animations and disabling auto-playing videos and other resource-intensive processes. You can configure it in Telegram Settings > Power Saving . The slider at the top allows you to set a battery percentage, and power saving mode will automatically turn on if the battery level drops below that value. I set it to 30%, but you can choose a different number if you prefer. On the same page, you can also manually disable resource-intensive processes, which I used to completely disable auto-playing videos and GIFs.

Telegram groups provide convenient options for detailed management.

Group messaging is one area where Telegram offers far more options than its competitors. After creating a group, tap its name, select “Group Settings,” and you’ll see a variety of options. Under “Permissions,” you can decide whether group members can send messages, voice notes, photos, videos, music, links, add members, pin messages, and more. On the same page, you can also enable “Slow Mode,” which sets a minimum delay between two messages from the same member. If you set this value to 1 minute, members will have to wait a minute before sending their second message.

I’d love to see more apps implement a version of “slow mode,” as it prevents groups from becoming cluttered with a multitude of short messages in quick succession. Additional settings include enabling topics, which allows you to create different “channels” within a group to keep discussions on-topic (separate from the social media “channels” mentioned at the beginning of this guide). These can be thought of as separate channels in Slack or IRC, so in larger groups, you could create separate threads for sports or politics. This avoids redundant messages in the main feed and provides dedicated spaces for different topics.

Telegram Premium adds features you probably don’t need.

Telegram has a paid subscription ($5 per month) that provides access to features such as unlimited cloud storage (maximum 4 GB per document), chat transcription, automatic translation of incoming messages, in-app checklist support, the ability to see when someone was last online (bypassing their privacy settings), and much more. These features are great for those with large channels, but for most users, none of them are necessary. Besides generous cloud storage, all of these features are available for free in other apps. And even cloud storage has worthy alternatives, including smaller providers like Proton and larger ones like Google and Apple .

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