Despite WhatsApp’s dominance, Telegram has always emerged as a powerful competitor with its useful chat features, bot functionality, and much more. In addition, it offers users a boatload of privacy features to help them feel more secure and control various parameters linked to their security. Today, we will discuss several privacy tips for Telegram in this explainer. Furthermore, you can check out our comparison guide on Telegram and the Telegram Lite app.
Best Telegram Privacy Tips to Use in 2023
Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram has plenty of useful privacy features that aren’t enabled by default for users. Luckily, you can turn on some good privacy settings to make the most out of this popular instant messaging service. Let’s have a detailed look at all the Telegram privacy tips.
Start a Secret Chat
Contrary to WhatsApp, normal chats on Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted. However, the app allows you to use secret chats, making end-to-end encryption mandatory for the selected conversation. This means that messages sent in the secret chat can only be viewed by the message participants, and nobody else (including Telegram) can decipher them. In addition, you can’t take screenshots of messages in a secret chat, nor can forward them. Follow these steps to start a secret chat with your Telegram friend.
1. Open Telegram and press the Blue pen icon in the bottom right corner to start a new conversation.
2. Next, tap the New Secret Chat option on the next page.
3. Finally, initiate a secret chat with a friend by picking your desired contact from the list.
Lock Telegram Chats
If your smartphone doesn’t offer the feature to lock apps, in order to lock Telegram with a passcode or a fingerprint lock. You can enable it using Telegram’s privacy options. Check out these easy steps to secure it by enabling the passcode on Telegram.
Send a Self Destructing Media
Similar to WhatsApp’s Auto Delete Messages, you can send self-destructing messages to your Telegram friends containing media that expires after a set time limit. This becomes useful in scenarios where you don’t want to leave any trace of your sent media on your or your friend’s device. Here’s how you can create and send it on Telegram.
1. Open your desired Telegram chat and press the Attach button next to the message field to pick your desired file for sending.
2. Next, tap the Timer button at the bottom.
3. Set your preferred self-destruct timer for the file and press the Done button to save the changes.
4. Finally, press the Blue send button to share the self-destructing media file with your message participant.
Enable Two-Step Verification
Like other social media platforms and instant messaging apps, enabling two-step verification on Telegram makes your account more secure against unauthorized access and cyber-attacks, as each time you log into your account, your request will be authenticated by an OTP and a password. Here’s how you can turn on this feature to secure your Telegram account.
1. Tap the Hamburger Menu in the top-left corner to open Telegram Settings.
2. Next, tap on Privacy and Security and press the Two-Step verification option to enable it.
3. Set an additional login password for Two-Step Verification by pressing the Set Password button and then entering the received OTP code to enable the security feature on your account.
Enforce Enhanced Privacy with Proxy Servers
If you’re concerned about your privacy and suspect someone is eavesdropping on you while conversing on Telegram, you can hide your original IP Address by masking it with a Proxy server. Telegram supports proxies like SOCKS5 and MTPronto to help users encrypt their chats and hide their IP Addresses. Follow these steps to set up a proxy server on your Telegram account.
1. Open the Telegram Settings from the hamburger menu and press the Data and Storage option to configure it.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the next page to locate the Proxy section and press the Proxy Settings option.
3. Finally, enable Proxy by turning on the toggle and entering the required details to enable the same. Once configured, press the tick button in the top-right corner to save and use the entered proxy settings.
Limit Showing your Telegram Profile Details
Controlling your profile details on instant messaging services provides enhanced security and protects you from receiving random messages and spam calls. Telegram allows you to control the visibility of your phone number, profile picture, and other crucial profile details using its in-app settings. Here’s how you can access them.
1. Open Telegram app Settings from the Hamburger Menu and tap the Privacy and Security settings to configure it.
2. Head to the Privacy section and press the Phone Number option.
3. To hide your phone number details from everyone on Telegram, configure it to Nobody else; you can set it to My Contacts to hide your phone number from unknown contacts except your friends.
4. Similarly, you can press the Profile Photos and Forwarded Messages options to hide or limit your link participation from forwarded messages respectively.
Hide Online Status and Last Seen
Similar to other instant messaging apps, Telegram allows you to hide your online status and last seen to avoid stalkers. Follow these Telegram privacy tips to hide the last seen in Telegram on your Phone or Desktop.
Control Who Can Call or Add you to New Groups
Getting random calls or being added as a participant to unknown Telegram groups can be very annoying. Fortunately, you can control it by configuring your account’s privacy settings. Here’s how you can configure it.
1. Open your Telegram app Settings and press the Privacy and Security option to configure it.
2. Next, tap on Calls and pick your desired settings for who can call you through the Telegram app. If you wish to restrict getting calls on Telegram completely, you can change the setting to Nobody and save the changes.
3. Similarly, press the Groups and Channels option under the Privacy section and pick the desired restricted settings for who can add you to group chats on Telegram. If you switch the setting to ‘My Contacts‘, only your Telegram friends can add you to new group chats.
Set up Telegram Account Auto-Delete
By default, Telegram removes your account permanently if it stays inactive for six months. However, you can change it by configuring privacy settings inside the Telegram app and extending the time it to a year. Here’s what you need to follow.
1. Open your Telegram app Settings and press the Privacy and Security option.
2. Next, locate the Delete My Account section and press the ‘If Away For‘ option to set custom days for automatic account deletion.
3. Finally, choose your desired time period from the available presets to self-destruct your account after the selected days of inactivity.
Clear your Payment and Shipping Info Details
Most businesses on Telegram use bots to provide a seamless purchase experience to their customers. Consequently, if you often make purchases using Telegram by sharing your payment and shipping details, you can clear all the shared details at once from the Telegram settings. Follow these steps to do so.
1. Expand the Privacy and Security option inside the Telegram app and press the Clear Payment and Shipping Info option under the Bots and Websites section.
2. Next, press the Clear All button to delete the entire payment details from Telegram.
Control Active Telegram Sessions
Besides other useful Telegram privacy tips, you can view and control all active sessions across different devices. This way, you can log out of your Telegram account from devices you no longer use. Here’s what you need to follow.
1. Configure Privacy and Security settings inside the Telegram app and tap on Devices to view all the active sessions.
2. Review the list of all active sessions and tap on it to view more details.
3. Finally, press the Terminate Session button to log out of an active Telegram session.
Enable Auto-Delete Messages in Telegram Chats
If you’re a concerned privacy user like me and don’t wish to leave any traces of your sent messages on Telegram, you can enable the Auto-Delete feature. Once enabled, all new messages in chats that you start will be automatically deleted for everyone after a set period of time.
1. Open your Telegram account’s Privacy and Security settings and press the Auto-Delete Messages option to configure it.
2. Next, pick a desired self-destruct time and tap the Enable button to set up the auto-delete messages feature on all Telegram chats.
Control Which Photos Get Saved To Gallery
With Telegram’s advanced privacy settings, you can also pick which photos can get automatically saved to your device’s gallery. You can enable this setting for private chats, groups, and channels to save all photos directly to your smartphone. Here’s how:
1. Expand the Hamburger Menu in the top-left corner to access Telegram Settings.
2. Next, press the Data and Storage option.
3. Finally, locate the ‘Save to Gallery‘ section and turn on your preferred toggle buttons to control which photos should get automatically saved to your device.
Disable Autoplay Media
If you’re tired of media playing automatically in your Telegram chats, you can disable it by accessing your account’s privacy features.
1. Expand your Telegram account’s Data and Storage settings and locate the Autoplay section to configure it.
2. Next, turn off your desired toggle buttons to disable GIFs and videos from playing automatically.
3. Additionally, you can turn off the Streaming feature on your account to disable videos and audio files that stream instantly without waiting for the files to download fully.
Remove Contacts from Telegram Servers
Telegram saves synced contacts on its servers to provide ease of access to its users. If you feel uncomfortable about the same, you can remove them by configuring your account privacy settings. Here’s how it can be done:
1. Expand your account’s Privacy and Security settings and scroll down to the next page to locate the Contacts section.
2. Press the Delete Synced Contacts button to remove all your saved contacts from Telegram servers. Confirm your action by pressing the Delete button.
Translate Foreign Messages Automatically
Besides the dedicated Google Translate app, Telegram can translate foreign languages into your chats for easy understanding. Once this feature is enabled, you will see a translate button next to the chat you wish to translate. Follow these steps to enable the same.
1. Open your Telegram account settings and press the Language setting to configure it.
2. Next, turn on the Show Translate button to translate any message with a single button press. This will be quite helpful if you frequently converse with people speaking different languages.
Bonus Tip: Stop Contact Joined Alert on Telegram
Are you tired of getting the ‘Contact Joined Telegram’ alert on your smartphone? Follow this detailed guide to turn off the Contact Joined Telegram notification easily.
Wrapping Up: Stay Secure with Telegram!
We hope you’ve picked some useful Telegram privacy tips from this explainer to make the platform safer for you or your loved ones. If you find it helpful, forward it to your friends and family to keep them informed. Check the below links for other productive guides on Telegram, and stay tuned to GadgetsToUse for more such reads.
Also, Read the following:
- 4 Signs to Check if Someone Blocked you on Telegram
- 3 Ways to Read Telegram Messages Without Seen
- 3 Ways to Send Photos, and Videos without Compression in Telegram
- How to Move your WhatsApp Chats to Telegram on Android & iOS
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