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Now tap on Notifications and mute the contact for either a custom period of time or forever. I generally leave it for forever. Telegram Privacy Choices Telegram is a free instant-app service founded by people behind VK, which is Russia’s biggest social networking site, primarily focused on speed and user privacy. Initially released in August 2013, the app has managed to get over 400 million monthly active users.

Disclosure: Our website is reader-supported. If you purchase any service through our partner links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This security-focused messaging app allows you to register a unique username so that people can message or add you to groups without necessarily knowing your phone number. This way, you can keep your number private. If you select the Scheduled option, the auto-night mode will kick in at a pre-defined time which you can change. If you select the Automatic mode, the auto-night mode will start depending on the ambient light. You can slide the slider to select at what percentage of the ambient lighting do you want the night mode to start at. Personally, I prefer the scheduling option, however, you can use the one you like. A further privacy blunder is that Telegram notifies your contacts when you join it — unless you don’t give it permission to access your contacts. The app doesn’t warn you it’s about to ping your contacts, and that’s a big caveat for those who want to use Telegram to keep a low profile.

Set Auto-Delete Timer for a Telegram Chat If you like to use dark themes only in the night so that the app doesn’t blind you, enabling auto-night mode can save you a lot of hassle. Once you turn the auto-night mode on, the app will automatically switch to dark mode at the scheduled time. To enable auto-night mode go to Settings-> Chat Settings-> Themes and tap on Auto-Night Mode. Here you can select between Automatic and Scheduled. Open Telegram chat The aforementioned secret chats are where you can take part in end-to-end encrypted messaging with a contact. But that’s not its only benefit: Secret chats also don’t allow a person forward messages from there or take screenshots. Of course, someone could take a picture of the screen with another device, but it’s still discouraged, and it’s bolstered by another feature: self-destruct timers.

Live location & proximity alerts If you’ve already downloaded the app, here are some cool tricks that will help you use Telegram more efficiently. We’ve described the features and how to use them. While instructions are specific to Android devices, you can follow them on iOS devices too.