Transfer Ownership. Give ownership of your group or channel to one of its admins by enabling all rights for that admin.

(Remain Anonymous can be either disabled or enabled)

Passcode Lock. You can add a local passcode to your mobile or desktop app, which is required to open the chat list and see your messages.

To add a passcode, go to Settings > Privacy and Security > Passcode Lock. You can set the app to automatically lock after a certain amount of time, and can manually lock the app by tapping the 🔓 icon in your chat list.

If supported by your device, you can also enable fingerprint or face unlock, in addition to the numerical code. For extra security, you can also enable a Two-Step Verification Password – which is required each time you log in to your Telegram account.

Granular Privacy Settings. Change your overall visibility and add individual exceptions for any category – such as your phone number, last seen time and more.

You can add individual users and entire group chats as exceptions – settings will adjust automatically as people join and leave the group.

Default Browser for Links. Choose a default app for opening links – either Telegram’s in-app browser, or your preferred app.

User Bios. Add bio text to your profile to say a little bit about yourself or include an iconic quote.

Custom Folders let you organize your chat list into specific tabs. Include and exclude individual chats and categories for complete control.

Anonymous Admins. Enable Remain Anonymous to make an admin invisible. Anonymous admins can’t be seen in the list of members and their messages are sent with the name and photo of the group instead of their own.

Inline GIF Search. Type @gif to quickly search for and send GIFs in any chat from the message field.

Export Chat History. Use Telegram Desktop to make an offline reference copy of single chats or your entire account, including both messages and media.

Keep Media. This setting helps you save space on your device by removing older media items from your cache. Opening photos, videos or files again in a chat will automatically redownload them from the cloud.

Quick Share Arrows. Instantly forward Channel posts to the chats of your choice.

Twitch Stream Support. Open your favorite streams in Picture-in-Picture mode, so you can chat while you watch 🍿

Voice Messages. Tap the 2X button to change your playback speed, or slide across the message and jump to a specific spot.

Hold to record your message and release to send it. Swipe up to lock recording and go hands-free, which also lets you preview the message. Tap the microphone icon to switch to video recording.

Mute shortcuts. Select a chat on Android or swipe on iOS to quickly enable or disable notifications. Chats can also be muted from their profile, and have multiple temporary mute options.

In Chat Settings, Android users can also set a specific action for swiping in the chat list, which includes muting chats.

Secret Chats. Create additional one-on-one chats with your contacts that use end-to-end encryption and are not stored in or synced with the cloud – only locally on the two participating devices.

Secret Chats are device and session-specific, meaning they don’t appear on a user’s other devices, and will be cancelled if one of the participants logs out.

These chats prevent forwarding messages and have extra privacy features – like a self-destruct timer that erases messages after they are read, as well as screenshot alerts on iOS and screenshot blocking on Android. You can identify Secret Chats from the 🔒 icon in the header and on the chat list.

End-to-end encryption is provided by Telegram’s MTProto 2.0 protocol, which has been independently verified by thousands of researchers.

Audio Player. Share music and audio files, each up to 2 GB in size. Sending multiple tracks in one message will create a playlist – tapping one song will add them all to your queue.

The player bar shows what’s playing and lets you quickly pause and resume from anywhere in the app. Tap the player bar to open the full audio player.

In the audio player, you can press and hold on the Next and Previous buttons to fast-forward or rewind. Podcasts and long audio tracks support multiple playback speeds. Tap the artist name to see a list of their tracks from all your chats.

Download / Upload Progress. Keep track of media and files as you upload or download them.

Scale Font Size. Change the size of message text to see your chats with perfect 20/20 vision.

On iOS, users can sync all text to their System setting, or set individual font sizes for chats and menus.

Format Text in Captions. Add emphasis, links and more not only in messages, but also in captions for photos and videos.

Text you type in the message bar instantly converts to a caption when you attach media – and keeps its formatting.

Verified Chats. Public figures and organizations can verify their public channel, group or bot so that users can be sure the chat is official.

Verified chats appear with a blue badge both in the chat list and on their profiles.

Official messages from Telegram, such as service notifications and login codes only come from our verified accounts.

Media Editor: Quality Slider. Change the resolution and size of a video before sending it.