With Telegram, you can create group chats with up to 200,000 people so you can stay connected with everyone at once. Plus, you can share videos up to 2GB, send multiple photos from the web, and forward any media you receive in an instant.

All messages are in the cloud, so you can access them from any of your devices. Telegram secret chats offer end-to-end encryption. Telegram became one of the top-5 downloaded apps worldwide in 2024 and now has over 700 million monthly active users.

What's the difference between Telegram groups and channels?

  • Telegram groups are ideal for sharing stuff with friends and family, or collaboration in teams of up to 200,000 members. These groups can be public or private and you can assign several administrators.
  • Channels are for broadcasting messages to large audiences. These channels can have an unlimited number of subscribers. All the messages sent in a channel have a view counter that gets updated when the message is viewed, including its forwarded copies.

Can I use Telegram on my phone and PC at the same time?

You can use Telegram on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iPhone/iOS devices. You can log in to Telegram from as many of your devices as you like, all at the same time. Since it is cloud-based, all your chats will sync instantly.

Is Telegram better than WhatsApp?

Telegram stores all your messages in the cloud with seamless sync, meaning you can access your messages from several devices at once, and share an unlimited number of photos, videos and files of up to 2 GB each. This is a key differentiator between the two platforms.

WhatsApp, on the other hand, stores messages and all data on your device and lets you backup conversations on Google Drive or iCloud. New versions of WhatsApp allow for PC desktop clients to be connected even if your mobile device is offline.

Security-wise, WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption as the default for all private communication, this includes messages and calls, group and one-on-one chats as well as any photos or files you send. However, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook which makes many wonder about privacy.

Telegram uses end-to-end encryption on video and voice calls by default, however texts and file sharing do not. Telegram's default messaging is only encrypted between the sender and Telegram servers. In a one-on-one conversation using Telegram, you can initiate a "secret chat" that is encrypted. These secret chats are not stored in Telegram's cloud.

All in all, both Telegram and WhatsApp are robust messaging platforms. Telegram is more open to customization and less restrictive in terms of features and ways you can use it, while WhatsApp is a strong contender that may be more mainstream in some regions. If you need fully secure messaging though, you may be better off checking out Signal.

Can I make video calls on Telegram?

Yes, you can make free voice and video calls on Telegram.

Unsend Messages

We hope everybody had a great celebration. We at Telegram certainly did. One of our engineers got so excited about the new year that he mistakenly shared awful stickers with his Mom. To fix this, he quickly added a way to unsend recently sent messages. This smart move saved his morning, and it can still save yours! If you use Telegram v.3.16 or later, you can now unsend any weird messages you shared within the last 48 hours.

Shareable Chat Folders

Chat folders can now be shared with a link - inviting your friends or colleagues to dozens of work groups, collections of news channels, and more. With one tap, they will add the folder and instantly join all its chats. Each chat folder supports multiple invite links allowing access to different chats. When creating a link, select the chats you'd like to include - and give it a unique name to match, like Interns or Managers. If you add more chats to your folder and update its link, members will see a suggestion to join the new chats.

What's New

This month we've added more than 15 new features, including recommended channels, a way to view your own profile and display your channel and birthday on your page, improved moderation tools for group admins – and much more.

Recommended Channels

The search interface has a new 'Channels' tab that shows the channels you follow. The tab also has a list of recommended channels with similar topics where you can discover new content creators.

When viewing posts from a channel, you can pull up to jump to the next unread channel in your list. After hopping through all your channels, you can keep scrolling to browse recommended channels.

My Profile

Your Settings now have a 'My Profile' section that allows you to view your profile as it appears to other users – and quickly edit or change any information.

You can now pin up to 3 stories to the top of your profile page – to showcase your achievements or make sure nobody misses that cat in a suit you met in an elevator.

Birthdays

Anyone can choose to add their birthday to their profile – letting all their contacts know when to bring gifts. On your birthday, anyone who visits your profile will be greeted with animated confetti and plenty of balloons.

When it's someone else's birthday, a banner appears in your chat list – so you won't forget to congratulate them. Don't worry if you forgot their gift, you can tap the banner to quickly send a subscription to Telegram Premium.

Channels on Your Profile

If you own a channel, you can now add it to your profile page. This places a detailed preview of the latest post above your bio – sending visitors to your personal project, online portfolio or company blog in one tap.

Collectibles on Your Profile

Owners of collectible usernames can link them to their Telegram account or channels – listing the extra names on the profile page.

Tapping a collectible username or anonymous number on someone's profile now pulls up extra info about the collectible – like when it was acquired and for how much.

Share Location Indefinitely

When meeting up with friends or taking a trip, you can share your live location with individual users or entire group chats. This lets others follow your journey – or even set an alert for when you arrive.

Now you can add more time to an existing shared location. And if you want friends and family to keep track of your movements for extended periods, there is a new option to share your location with them indefinitely, until you turn it off.

Reaction Notification Settings

We've added new settings that let you control notifications for reactions to your messages.

This update also introduces notifications about reactions to your stories, so you will never miss a heart again. (Or a flame. Or a thumbs up. Or a… pigeon? Whatever that means.)

Profile Pictures in Forwarded Messages

Forwarded messages now show the profile picture of the user from whom they were forwarded. This makes them more recognizable in the chat – and makes it easier to read forwarded conversations with multiple authors.

If you limit who can link back to your account when forwarding, your profile picture will not appear on messages forwarded from you.

Animated Emoji in Polls

Premium users can now include animated and custom emoji in polls. At long last, democracy can help decide whether animated ducks are better than static cats.

Mass Moderation for Groups

Group admins can now select several messages and perform multiple moderation actions at the same time – in a new menu with individual toggles for each user and action to maximize efficiency.

The menu also has options to restrict user permissions instead of banning them from the community right away.

Improved Recent Actions

The Recent Actions section lets group admins view notable events that took place in the chat in the past 48 hours, like deleted or edited messages and admin activity.

With this update, recent actions are now more compact, with similar actions by the same admin grouped together. Admins can also see replies and to which topics recent action messages belong.

Reaction Management for Channels

Channel admins now have an extra way to manage reactions – selecting a maximum number of reaction types each post can have to keep things tidy.

Unhide Ads

By default, subscribing to Telegram Premium hides ads in channels. If you wish to still see them – either to check your own ads or help channels earn rewards, there is a new toggle to show sponsored messages in Settings > Telegram Business.

Open Stories Anonymously

While viewing stories, Premium users can activate Stealth Mode in the story menu to hide their recent views and continue hiding views for the next 25 minutes.

Now you can also activate Stealth Mode from the chat list – simply press and hold a story in your feed and select 'View Anonymously'. This opens the story without adding you to the list of viewers even for a second, and also turns on Stealth Mode.