Telegram is among the many most popular WhatsApp alternatives round. Telegram helps messaging people and teams, however it additionally has social media-like channels the place you possibly can put up to 1000’s of subscribers without delay. On this piece, I will be focusing extra on Telegram as a messenger, since that is how I exploit it probably the most. In my decade of utilizing the app, I’ve realized fairly a bit about it, and I am right here to share the perfect Telegram hacks that it is best to know.
You want to manually allow end-to-end encryption
Not like Sign or WhatsApp, Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default. End-to-end encryption ensures that your messages can’t be learn by anybody with out accessing both your machine or the recipient’s machine, and at this level, it is change into an trade customary safety protocol for messaging apps. You’ll be able to allow end-to-end encryption in Telegram, however it requires a couple of additional steps, and even then, the implementation is just not very user-friendly. Secret Chat is Telegram’s identify for messages which have end-to-end encryption, and to entry it, comply with these steps:
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Open Telegram and begin a chat with a contact.
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Within the chat window, faucet the identify of the contact up prime.
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On the following web page, faucet extra, and choose Begin Secret Chat.
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You now want to attend for the recipient to return on-line and settle for your request to start out a Secret Chat. Once they do, that dialog will change into end-to-end encrypted.
Sadly, you may must repeat this course of with every of your contacts, which leaves you with two completely different chats per contact (a Secret Chat and a traditional chat). The opposite limitation is you could’t entry Secret Chats on a number of units. They’re restricted to your telephone and the recipient’s telephone, and will not present up on Telegram’s desktop app. It is nice for safety, however not nearly as good for comfort.
Do not forget to delete your outdated profile images
Whenever you add a brand new profile image to your Telegram account, it doesn’t mechanically delete the earlier image. Which means your contacts can nonetheless go to your profile and see your older profile photos. To repair this, open the Telegram app and go to the Settings web page (which is inside the backside bar on iOS and hidden beneath the three-lines menu on different platforms). Faucet your profile photograph, choose the Edit button, and delete the images you do not wish to preserve.
Disable undesirable notifications
Credit score: Pranay Parab
Telegram tends to be a bit spammy with its notifications. By default, you may get an alert each time any of your contacts joins Telegram, which will get tiring very quick. You’ll be able to disable these undesirable notifications by going to Telegram Settings > Notifications and Sounds and disabling New Contacts. When you’re on this web page, you possibly can take a second to disable some other notification sorts you won’t wish to see, together with Group Chats, Tales, Channels, Reactions, and so forth.
Change when Telegram auto-deletes your account
Telegram is a bit aggressive about deleting inactive accounts. It can mechanically delete your account in case you do not use the app for six months. This is not going to hassle common customers, however it’s a good suggestion to customise this period based mostly in your wants. Telegram helps you to set the auto-delete timer for wherever from 1 month to 24 months, so you possibly can choose the choice that is greatest for you. Go to Telegram Settings > Privateness and Safety > If Away For to make the change.
You’ll be able to block Telegram calls
Telegram helps voice and video calls, which is fairly customary for messaging apps. Not like most of its rivals, although, Telegram lets you block voice and video calls entirely. Simply head over to Telegram Settings > Privateness and Safety > Calls and choose No one.
Improve your Telegram account’s safety
It is by no means a foul thought so as to add a couple of additional layers of safety to your Telegram account. The app helps two-step verification and passkeys, and you’ll allow each by going to Telegram Settings > Privateness and Safety. Each choices are positioned close to the highest of this web page.
Decrease your knowledge utilization
Certainly one of Telegram’s greatest options is granular controls for its numerous settings, together with how a lot knowledge the app makes use of. That is nice for individuals with metered web connections. You’ll be able to entry these choices beneath Telegram Settings > Information and Storage. Go to Utilizing Mobile and Utilizing Wi-Fi to customise how a lot knowledge the app makes use of. In case you set knowledge utilization to Low, Telegram will compress media to protect bandwidth. On the identical web page, you too can disable all auto-downloads for images, tales, movies, and information. Or, in case you faucet any of those choices, you possibly can individually disable auto-downloads based mostly on the kind of chat. For example, Telegram helps you to disable automated downloads of images, movies, information, and tales from solely group chats or solely channels. This fashion, it’s going to nonetheless mechanically obtain media despatched in non-public chats, however not in group chats.
What do you suppose to date?
You can too go to the Information and Storage settings web page, and allow Use Much less Information for Calls. This may compress audio a little bit bit, however might be useful for staying beneath knowledge limits.
Automate the built-in energy saving mode
Telegram has a built-in energy saving mode that conserves battery by decreasing animations or disabling autoplaying movies and different intensive processes. Set it up by going to Telegram Settings > Energy Saving. The slider on the prime helps you to set a battery proportion, and energy saving will mechanically activate in case your telephone dips beneath it. I’ve set it to 30%, however you possibly can select a distinct quantity in case you like. On the identical web page, you too can manually disable useful resource intensive processes, which I’ve used it to show off autoplaying movies and gifs solely.
Telegram teams have helpful granular controls
Credit score: Pranay Parab
Group messaging is one space the place Telegram lets you do much more than its competitors. After creating a gaggle, faucet the group’s identify, choose Group Settings, and you will see a plethora of choices. Beneath Permissions, you’ll determine if group members can ship messages, voice notes, images, movies, music, hyperlinks, add members, pin messages, and so forth. On the identical web page, you too can allow Gradual Mode, which enforces a minimal delay between two messages from the identical member. In case you set this to 1 minute, then members should wait a minute earlier than sending their second message.
I might like to see different apps additionally implement a model of Gradual Mode, because it stops individuals from spamming the group with a number of brief messages in a row. Extra settings embrace enabling Subjects, which helps you to create completely different “channels” inside a gaggle to maintain discussions from going astray (separate from the social media “channels” talked about initially of this information). You’ll be able to consider these like separate channels in Slack or IRC, so in bigger teams, you possibly can have separate subjects to debate sport or politics. This retains the principle feed freed from pointless messages and assigns devoted spots for various subjects.
Telegram Premium provides options you most likely do not want
Telegram has a subscription service ($5/mo) that allows you to entry options corresponding to limitless cloud storage (with a most of 4GB per doc), chat transcription, automated translation of incoming messages, assist for checklists within the app, the power to see when somebody was final seen on-line (bypassing their privateness settings), and extra. These options are nice for individuals who have channels with a big following, however for most individuals, none of those options are important. Apart from the beneficiant cloud storage, you will get all of those options in different apps totally free. And even cloud storage has robust options, together with small suppliers like Proton or bigger ones like Google and Apple.
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