How to Add, Delete and Stop Syncing Contacts on Telegram

You add someone to your Telegram contacts from their profile (Add to Contacts), from a contact card shared in a chat, or by entering their phone number in the Contacts screen. You delete a contact from their profile menu. To stop Telegram reading your phone's address book, turn off Sync Contacts in Privacy and Security, then use Delete Synced Contacts to remove what was already uploaded.

The order matters: if sync is still on, a contact you delete can come straight back from your phone. This guide explains how Telegram's contact list really works, then walks through adding, editing, deleting and stopping sync on Android, iPhone, Desktop and Web.

How Telegram contacts work

Telegram keeps its own contact list for your account, stored in the cloud and shared by all your devices. That list is filled in two ways:

• Synced from your phone. If you allow it, the mobile app reads your phone's address book and uploads it so Telegram can show you which of your contacts use Telegram. Anyone in your address book who has a Telegram account appears in your Telegram contacts.
• Added by hand. You can save someone as a contact inside Telegram, with or without their phone number, for example after chatting with them through their username.

Why your contact list matters

Your contact list is more than a phone book. It affects:

• Privacy settings. Many options can be set to "My Contacts": who sees your last seen, profile photo, phone number, who can call you or add you to groups. Changing who is a contact changes who gets those permissions.
• Who can find you. Your phone number settings decide whether people who have your number saved can find your account.
• Notifications. By default Telegram can tell you when someone from your address book joins Telegram.
• The name you see. The name you save for a contact is the name you see in chats. It is private: the other person never sees what you called them.

Contacts are not the same as chats

Deleting a contact does not delete your chat with them, and you can chat with people who are not your contacts at all. Contacts are a label and a set of permissions, not the conversation itself.

Before you start

1. Decide whether you want sync at all. Sync is convenient: it shows you which friends use Telegram instantly. It also means Telegram stores a copy of your address book. Some people are happy with that, others are not.
2. Know that sync is per device. Each phone where sync is on uploads its own address book. Turning it off on one phone does not stop another.
3. Know that deleting can be undone by sync. A contact who is still in your phone's address book will be re-added while sync is on.
4. Telegram Desktop and Web do not read an address book. They show the contact list from the cloud and let you add people by number, but they never sync a computer's contacts.

Sync on or off: which suits you?

There is no single right answer. These descriptions should help you recognise your situation.

Sync on usually suits you if

• You mostly use Telegram with friends and family who are already in your phone.
• You want to see straight away which people you know have joined.
• You rarely keep numbers in your phone that you would not want linked to a messaging app, such as clients, doctors or one-off tradespeople.

Sync off usually suits you if

• Your phone holds many work or customer numbers and you do not want those people treated as "contacts" by your privacy settings.
• You prefer that Telegram does not hold a copy of your address book.
• You mostly reach people by username, in groups or through links, so the address book adds little.
• You share the phone or tablet with someone else, whose contacts should not land in your account.

A middle path

Some people leave sync on for a while after joining, so that their existing friends appear, and then turn it off and delete the synced copy. The people they actually talk to can be re-added by hand from the chat, and stay. The cost is that you will no longer see new friends who join later unless they message you or you search for them.

How to add a contact

Adding someone from your phone's address book

This is automatic when sync is on.

1. Save the person's phone number in your phone's normal Contacts app.
2. Make sure Telegram has permission to access your contacts and that Sync Contacts is on (see the sync section below).
3. Open Telegram. Within a short time, the person appears in Telegram's contact list if they have a Telegram account and their settings let people with their number find them.

Adding by phone number on Android

1. Open the menu and tap Contacts.
2. Tap the add button (a person with a plus sign, or a floating button).
3. Enter the first name, optional last name and the phone number with the country code.
4. Tap the check mark to save.

On Android this usually also saves the person to your phone's address book, depending on your version and settings.

Adding by phone number on iPhone

1. Tap Contacts in the bottom bar.
2. Tap the plus button in the corner.
3. Enter the name and phone number with the country code.
4. Tap Create or Done.

Adding by phone number on Desktop and Web

1. Open the menu and choose Contacts.
2. Click Add contact.
3. Enter the name and phone number and confirm.

Adding someone you chat with by username

You do not need a phone number to save someone. If you started a chat through their username:

1. Open the chat and tap their name at the top to open the profile.
2. Tap Add to Contacts (on some versions it is in the menu, on others a button or a bar at the top of the chat).
3. Enter the name you want to save them under.
4. Decide whether to tick Share my phone number with them. Leave it unticked if you do not want them to see your number.
5. Save.

The person is now in your contacts. They do not get your number unless you chose to share it, and they are not told what name you used. Our guide to hiding your phone number explains who can see your number in general.

Adding from a shared contact card

If someone sends you a contact card in a chat:

1. Tap the card.
2. Tap Add to Contacts or the equivalent option.
3. Adjust the name if you like, then save.

Adding with a QR code

Your profile has a QR code that opens your public profile when scanned, if you have a username. To add someone in person, ask them to show their QR code from their profile or settings, scan it with your phone's camera or Telegram's scanner, open their profile and tap Add to Contacts. This only works for people who chose to have a username and show their code.

For finding people in the first place, see our guide to finding and adding people on Telegram, which covers usernames, phone numbers and shared links.

Why a number sometimes does not work

When you add a phone number and the person does not appear on Telegram, one of these is usually true:

1. They do not have a Telegram account on that number. Telegram offers to invite them instead.
2. Their privacy settings stop it. Telegram lets people decide who can find them by their number. If they allow only their own contacts, you cannot find them by number unless they have saved yours.
3. The number format is wrong. Include the country code and remove spaces or leading zeros that belong to local dialling.
4. They use a different number for Telegram. Some people sign up with an anonymous number or an old SIM.

You cannot work around someone's privacy choice. If they want to be found, they can share their username or send you a message first.

Editing a contact

Renaming a contact

1. Open the contact's profile.
2. Tap Edit (iPhone) or the menu and Edit contact (Android, Desktop).
3. Change the first and last name.
4. Save.

The new name appears in your chats and contact list. It does not change on the other person's side, and they are not notified. On a phone with sync, renaming inside Telegram may not change the name in your phone's address book, and a later sync can overwrite it with the address book name. If that happens, rename the person in your phone's Contacts app instead.

Setting a private photo

Recent versions of the mobile apps let you set a photo for a contact that only you see, and in some versions suggest a photo to the contact, which they can accept or ignore. Look in the contact's edit screen for photo options. If you do not see them, your version may not have them.

How to delete a contact

Deleting on Android

1. Open the contact's profile by tapping their name in a chat or the Contacts list.
2. Tap the three-dot menu.
3. Tap Delete contact.
4. Confirm.

Deleting on iPhone

1. Open the contact's profile.
2. Tap Edit.
3. Scroll down and tap Delete Contact.
4. Confirm.

Deleting on Desktop and Web

1. Open the contact's profile.
2. Open the menu and choose Delete contact.
3. Confirm.

What happens when you delete a contact

• They are not notified. Telegram does not tell anyone they were removed.
• Your chat stays. The conversation remains in your chat list. Delete it separately if you want to.
• Their name changes. You now see the name they chose for themselves instead of the name you saved.
• Privacy permissions change. They no longer count as "My Contacts" for your settings, so if your last seen or profile photo is set to contacts only, they lose access.
• They may keep your number. If you once shared your phone number with them, deleting them from your list does not remove it from their phone.

Deleting many contacts at once

Telegram's apps focus on one-by-one deletion. The cleaner way to remove many at once depends on where they came from:

• If they came from your phone's address book: delete them in your phone's Contacts app, and Telegram follows on the next sync.
• If you want to clear everything synced: use Delete Synced Contacts, described below.

Why a deleted contact comes back

This is the most common frustration with Telegram contacts. You delete someone, and the next day they are back.

The cause

The person is still saved in your phone's address book, and contact sync is on. Telegram reads the address book, sees the number, and adds them again. Telegram is doing what it was told; the instruction just came from your phone rather than from you.

The fix

1. Delete the person from your phone's own Contacts app, including any copies stored in an email account linked to your phone.
2. Delete them from Telegram.
3. If they still return, check other devices with sync on, such as a tablet or an old phone still signed in.
4. If you want them in your phone but not in Telegram, the only reliable way is to turn sync off.

How to stop syncing contacts

Turning off sync stops Telegram reading your address book from that device. It does not, on its own, delete what was already uploaded.

Turning sync off on Android

1. Open the menu and tap Settings.
2. Tap Privacy and Security.
3. Scroll to the contacts section (sometimes titled Data Settings or Contacts).
4. Turn off Sync Contacts.

Turning sync off on iPhone

1. Open Settings in Telegram.
2. Tap Privacy and Security.
3. Find Data Settings or the contacts section.
4. Turn off Sync Contacts.

Removing Telegram's access in your phone's settings

For a belt-and-braces approach, also remove the permission at system level:

• Android: open the phone's Settings, find Apps, then Telegram, then Permissions, and set Contacts to not allowed.
• iPhone: open the phone's Settings, find Telegram and turn off Contacts. You can also find this under the system Privacy section, in Contacts.

Without the permission, the app cannot read the address book even if the in-app switch is turned back on by mistake.

Deleting what was already uploaded

1. In Telegram, go to Settings, then Privacy and Security.
2. In the same contacts section, tap Delete Synced Contacts.
3. Confirm.

Do this after turning sync off. If sync is still on, the app may upload your address book again straight away.

What happens to your contacts and chats

• Your chats stay. Nothing about your conversations changes.
• Your Telegram contact list may become much shorter, or empty. People who were contacts only because of sync are removed.
• Names change back. You see each person's own Telegram name instead of the name from your address book.
• "My Contacts" permissions shrink. If your settings are set to contacts only, removed people lose access to things like your last seen.
• Your phone's address book is not touched. The numbers stay on your phone; only Telegram's copy goes.

After this, you can still add individual people by hand. They will stay in your Telegram contacts without being in your phone.

Suggest Frequent Contacts

Near the sync options you may also find a setting that suggests people you message often when you search or share. It uses your activity to rank suggestions. Turning it off removes those suggestions and, according to the prompt in the app, deletes the related data. It has nothing to do with your address book, but people who want less data kept often switch both off together.

When a stranger messages you: the bar at the top of the chat

When someone who is not in your contacts writes to you, Telegram usually shows a bar at the top of the chat with options such as adding them to contacts, blocking them or reporting spam. It is worth understanding before you tap anything.

• Add to contacts saves them, which gives them whatever your privacy settings allow "My Contacts" to see. Do not tap it just to make the bar disappear.
• Share my phone number (shown in some cases) gives them your number. Only use it for people you know.
• Block or Report spam are the right choice for unsolicited messages from people you do not know. Reporting also helps Telegram stop the account from messaging others.

Unsolicited messages from strangers are a common starting point for scams. Our guide to spotting Telegram scams lists the typical openers.

Sharing your own contact

Sometimes you want someone to save you, rather than the other way round.

Sending your contact card

1. Open the chat with the person.
2. Tap the attachment (paperclip) button.
3. Choose Contact.
4. Pick yourself from the list, or another contact you want to share.
5. Send.

A contact card includes the phone number. Only send yours to people you would give your number to in person.

Sharing without a phone number

If you have a username, sending your username or your profile link is enough. The other person opens your profile and adds you without ever seeing your number, as long as your phone number privacy setting hides it. This is the safer choice for people you have just met, for buyers and sellers, and for anyone in a public group.

Contacts and multiple accounts

If you use more than one Telegram account in the same app, each account has its own contact list and its own privacy settings. Sync is also decided separately: you can let your personal account sync your phone's address book while your work account does not, or the other way round. When you turn sync off, check that you are in the right account; the account name or picture at the top of the settings screen tells you which one you are changing. Our guide to multiple accounts explains how the accounts are separated.

A quick privacy audit after cleaning up contacts

Because several privacy settings use "My Contacts", a big change to your contact list changes who can see what. After deleting synced contacts or removing many people, open Privacy and Security and look at each setting with fresh eyes:

1. Phone number. Who can see it, and who can find you by it. With fewer contacts, "My Contacts" is now a smaller circle.
2. Last seen and online. People removed from contacts now see an approximate label. See hiding your last seen.
3. Profile photos. Removed people may stop seeing your picture.
4. Calls. If calls are limited to contacts, removed people can no longer call you.
5. Groups and channels. If only contacts can add you to groups, removed people can no longer add you.
6. Exceptions. Check the "Always allow" lists. An exception overrides the contact rule, so someone you deleted may still have access through an old exception.

The privacy settings checklist walks through each of these in order.

Contacts when you move to a new phone

Because your Telegram contact list is in the cloud, it appears on a new phone as soon as you sign in. You do not need to export or import anything inside Telegram. What does need attention is sync:

• If your new phone's address book is empty or different, and sync is on, Telegram will start syncing that new address book.
• If you had turned sync off on the old phone, the setting may need to be turned off again on the new one, because sync is decided per device.
• Your chats and the names you saved by hand inside Telegram come with you.

Our guide to moving Telegram to a new phone covers the rest of the move, including secret chats, which do not transfer.

What changes for the other person

Your contact decisions are mostly invisible to others, but a few things can change on their side.

• If you shared your phone number with them, they keep it in their contact card even after you delete them or stop syncing.
• If they had you in their contacts and you were mutual, some features that need mutual contacts may stop working. For example, accounts with spam restrictions can often only message mutual contacts. Our guide to the only-mutual-contacts limit explains this.
• Their view of your status may change. If your last seen is set to My Contacts and you delete them, they now see an approximate label.

Worked examples

Example: a new phone number for a friend

Your friend gets a new number. You update it in your phone's address book. With sync on, Telegram sees the new number and links it to their account if they moved Telegram to it. If they did not move their Telegram account, the new number has no Telegram account and nothing changes. Their chat stays tied to their Telegram account, not to the number.

Example: removing an ex from everything

You want someone out of your Telegram contacts and out of your status.

1. Delete them from your phone's address book.
2. Delete them in Telegram.
3. Add them to "Never share with" for last seen, profile photo and other settings, so even if they come back somehow, they see nothing.
4. If they keep messaging you, block them. Our guide to blocking and restricting covers what a block changes.

Example: a work phone with hundreds of client numbers

You use Telegram on a work phone full of client numbers and do not want every client in your Telegram contacts. Turn off sync, delete synced contacts, then add the few people you actually chat with by hand. Clients can still message you, and you can still message them, but they do not get "My Contacts" permissions by accident.

Example: a family tablet

A shared tablet signed in to your account is syncing a family address book into your contacts. Turn off Sync Contacts on the tablet itself. The setting on your phone does not control the tablet.

Troubleshooting

Contacts are not showing up in Telegram

Check the permission in your phone settings, make sure Sync Contacts is on, and remember that people only appear if they have Telegram on that number and allow it to be found. Our guide to Telegram not syncing contacts goes through each cause.

A contact's name keeps changing back

Telegram is syncing the name from your phone's address book. Rename them in the phone's Contacts app, or turn off sync.

I cannot find the Delete contact option

You may be looking at someone who is not a contact. The menu only offers Delete contact for people saved in your list. If the profile shows Add to Contacts, they are not saved.

I keep getting "joined Telegram" messages

Those come from synced contacts signing up. You can turn the notification off; see stopping "contact joined" notifications.

Deleted synced contacts but some people are still there

People you added by hand, or who were added from another device with sync still on, can remain. Check each signed-in phone and tablet.

Common mistakes

• Deleting a contact while sync is on. It comes back from your address book.
• Deleting synced contacts before turning sync off. The app uploads them again.
• Turning off sync on one device only. Every phone or tablet with sync uploads its own address book.
• Expecting deletion to remove your number from their phone. Once shared, it is theirs to keep.
• Thinking deleting a contact deletes the chat. Chats are separate.
• Forgetting the privacy effect. Removing someone from contacts changes what they can see if your settings use My Contacts.

FAQ

Does someone know if I delete them from my Telegram contacts?

No notification is sent. They may notice indirect changes, such as seeing "last seen recently" instead of your exact time if your settings are contacts only.

Can I add someone without their phone number?

Yes. Open their profile through a chat or their username and choose Add to Contacts. You can choose not to share your own number.

Will turning off sync delete my chats?

No. Sync only affects the contact list. Your chats, groups and channels are untouched.

Does Telegram keep my contacts after I turn sync off?

Turning sync off stops new uploads. To remove what was already uploaded, use Delete Synced Contacts as well.

Why do I see someone's own name instead of the name I saved?

They are not in your Telegram contacts, or your synced contacts were deleted. Add them again with the name you want.

Does Telegram Desktop sync my computer's contacts?

No. Desktop and Web show your cloud contact list and let you add people by number, but they do not read an address book.

Summary

Telegram's contact list lives in the cloud and is filled by syncing your phone's address book and by people you add by hand from a profile, a shared card or a phone number. Deleting a contact is a quiet change that keeps the chat but removes their name and "My Contacts" permissions. If a deleted contact keeps returning, your phone's address book is re-adding them. To stop that for good, turn off Sync Contacts on every device, remove the permission in your phone's settings, then use Delete Synced Contacts. Afterwards, add back only the people you actually want.