Telegram FAQ – short answers for real English readers

Yes. Telegram is free for personal use and never shows classic advertising inside chats. Telegram Premium adds optional perks like 4 GB uploads and animated profile pictures, but every core feature — messaging, calls, groups up to 200,000 members and cloud storage — stays free without hidden fees.

Standard users can send files up to 2 GB per message; Telegram Premium raises the limit to 4 GB. Files travel without compression, so ZIP archives and 4K video files reach the recipient in their original quality.

Tap the pencil icon in the mobile app → New Channel. Pick between public (search-indexed with an @handle) and private (invite link only). Add a description, avatar and a few starter posts. Reactions, comments and paid-post options can be toggled per channel from the settings menu.

Grab the signed tsetup .exe from the Windows page, run it, choose the Program Files install location and sign in with your phone number or by scanning the QR code from the mobile app. The installer registers the Start-menu shortcut and enables auto-updates automatically.

Yes. Telegram supports multi-device login: phone, tablet, desktop and browser can all be signed in simultaneously. Active sessions live under Settings → Devices and can be terminated one at a time whenever you like.

The APK on our Android page is the official signed 10.14.2 build by Telegram Messenger LLP. As long as the signer name matches inside the Android installer dialog, the sideload is safe. Enable “Install unknown apps” only for the one browser or file manager you use for the install.

Windows: Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Telegram Desktop → Uninstall. macOS: drag Telegram.app from Applications into the Trash and clear ~/Library/Application Support/Telegram Desktop. Mobile clients uninstall through the normal home-screen or Play Store flow. Cloud chats stay in the cloud and reappear after you sign in again.

Windows and macOS Desktop update in the background. Mobile clients rely on the App Store and Google Play. The Android APK version ships an in-app updater. If auto-updates are disabled, revisit the matching platform page any time and reinstall over the top.

Cloud chats are encrypted with MTProto 2.0 between your device and the Telegram servers. Secret chats add true end-to-end encryption on a single device with optional self-destruct timers. Pair that with two-step verification and Telegram's account is much harder to hijack than an SMS-only login.

Use the browser Web app when installing software is not an option — for example, on shared workstations or Chromebooks. Sign in with a QR code and use the messenger inside any modern browser. Note that secret chats live only on native clients.