How to delete your Telegram account

When you don’t want to be on Telegram any longer, remove your account

Source: Telegram/Public Domain

Apps that focus on privacy are becoming increasingly popular. Some popular privacy features include encryption, two-factor authentication, and automatically deleting messages after a set time limit.

Telegram is a popular messaging app with an emphasis on privacy, popular on PCs, Macs, and the best 5G phones. However, there are reasons you might want to delete your Telegram account. Maybe you don’t like that it requests access to your contacts. Perhaps you’re unhappy that it doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption by default. Maybe its mishandling of auto-deleting messages left a bad taste in your mouth. Maybe you don’t like that its slogan of “free forever” ended up having an expiration date.

No matter the reason, you’re in luck. The app has multiple ways to delete the account. Telegram doesn’t give you information on how to delete your account easily. However, we have the information you need about how to delete your account here.

As a general rule, people who want to delete an account want to delete it as soon as possible without having to suffer through any sort of waiting period. Telegram offers such a feature, but it doesn’t advertise it. It doesn’t have the feature within the app. You must use your browser to deactivate the account.

If you want to deactivate your account immediately, take the following steps:

1. Open your web browser of choice.
2. Navigate to the Telegram Delete Account or Manage Apps page
3. On the page, enter the phone number you provided in the app when you signed up for a Telegram account.

4. Open Telegram using the account associated with your phone number.
5. Find the message from Telegram that contains a login code.
6. Switch back to your browser window.
7. Type the provided login code into the webpage.
8. Type the reason why you’re disabling your Telegram account.
9. Click Delete My Account.
10. You will see a dialog box that asks you to confirm that you want to delete your account. Select Yes, Delete My Account.

After completing these steps, your Telegram account is officially deactivated.

How to automatically delete your Telegram account after a period of inactivity

Since Telegram is a privacy-focused app, it knows that users want to make sure nobody can access their information. This includes users who might not be able to access their Telegram account to delete it or make sure all unwanted information is scrubbed from their profile. To help keep abandoned accounts private, Telegram offers the ability to delete your account if you don’t log in for a certain period of time.

This capability is enabled by default, but you can choose to set how long it takes before your Telegram account is deleted. To set this time period, take the following steps:

1. Open the Telegram app.
2. In the upper-right corner, select the menu button.
3. In the menu, find and select Settings.
4. Select Privacy and Security.
5. Under Delete My Account, select If away for.
6. Choose the time period that’s right for you, from one month to one year.

After selecting the time period you desire, Telegram automatically deletes your account if you’re away for longer than the amount of time you specified.

Give Telegram another look

You might want to delete Telegram, either to maintain your privacy or because you’re not a fan of how the app operates. However, the app has multiple features that many users don’t know how to take advantage of. It’s possible that discovering these little-known features might rekindle your love for the app. Look at our list of overlooked Telegram features to make sure there isn’t something that you’re missing.