Now, if you choose to go down the mobile app way, you won’t be able to delete your account straight away. It will take at least a month for it to go away. If you do it from the company’s web portal, well, you can delete it immediately. That’s really an unnecessary difference between the two, as it does require an extra step if you’re doing it via the web portal. The process is not that complicated, though, and we’ll show you how to do it both ways. We’ll do that one step at a time, and you’ll also get a bunch of screenshots to guide you.
How to delete your Telegram account via the app
The first thing you’ll need to do is open the app, of course. We presume you’re signed in, and that your main screen will open. From there, you’ll need to tap the three horizontal lines in the top-left corner.
The side menu will open, and one of the options there will be ‘Settings’. That’s the one we need for the next step.
In the app’s Settings, you’ll see a bunch of various options, and the one we’re looking for is called ‘Privacy and Security’.
In that menu, find the ‘Delete my account’ subsection. In it, you’ll see the ‘If away for’ option, which is set to ‘6 months’ by default. This means that your Telegram account will be deleted in 6 months if you’re inactive for that long, regardless of whether you want it to or not. Tap that option if you’d like to speed things up.
A pop-up menu will appear, with three options. You can set this to 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or a year. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’ll set it to 1 month. Simply tap that option.
There you have it, your account is set to delete itself after a month of inactivity. You can log out of the app at this point. If you’d like to delete it immediately, though, don’t log out, as you’ll need to be logged in to complete that step. Read on.
How to delete your Telegram account via the web
If you’d like to delete your Telegram account immediately, you’ll need to navigate to Telegram’s web portal. Make sure you’re signed in to your Telegram account on your phone, though, as you won’t be able to complete this process otherwise, as mentioned earlier. Once you open that link, you’ll see a field where you’ll need to enter your phone number. Do that, and tap ‘Next’
You’ll receive a confirmation code via Telegram, on your phone. You’ll need to type in that confirmation code in an empty field on the next page. That code will contain both numbers and letters. Once you type it in, click ‘Sign In’.
On the next screen, you’ll see the ‘Delete account’ option.
Telegram will ask you to provide a reason for leaving, if you want. You don’t have to, of course. Regardless, click the ‘Delete My Account’ option at the bottom.
A confirmation window will pop up. Telegram will warn you that you won’t be able to return for several days if you decide to delete your account. If you’re fine with that, click ‘Yes, delete my account’.
There you go, you’ve deleted your Telegram account. The company will notify you on the next screen, as shown below.
