How to Hide Your Phone Number in Telegram (Disappear from Anyone’s Contacts)

In this article we will explain how Telegram works in terms of privacy and how this concerns the phone number visibility in particular. You will learn how to hide your cell phone number in Telegram so that nobody will be able to see you in the list of contacts (everything will look as if you don’t have Telegram on your phone number).

First of all, I created this guide for myself because I don’t want all people who has my phone number to receive the notification “Adam Swift joined Telegram!” as soon as I install the app.

Telegram is More Private Compared to Other Messengers

While WhatsApp has the only one identity for the subscriber – the phone number, Telegram provides more anonymity and allows you to use either your phone number or a username. Those who don’t have your number in the contacts can contact you by your unique username.

And the most important thing is that they won’t know your phone number even after you start a conversation if you configure the app the right way. If your partner knows your number it doesn’t mean that you will see his (her) one. Keep reading!

How to Hide Your Phone Number on Telegram and Disappear from Anyone’s Contacts in Telegram App

Step 1. Disable Number Sharing

In Telegram app for Android do the following:

• tap the Menu icon
• go to Settings:
• dive in Privacy and Security:
• select Phone Number:
• in Who can see my phone number select Nobody;
• in Who can find me by my number specify My Contacts:

If you have Telegram app installed on an Apple device, here’s what you do on iOS or iPadOS:

• launch Telegram;
• tap Settings at the bottom of the screen; 
• head to Privacy and Security:
• in the Privacy section tap on Phone Number;
• select Nobody and My Contacts respectively:
  

  

Step 2. Make sure you don’t have the person who shouldn’t see you on Telegram in your Contacts

Say, if you don’t want Adam Swift to be able to see that you have Telegram installed, delete him from your Contacts! It is necessary because there is no such option allowing you to prevent all Telegram users from finding you via your phone number. Don’t skip this step! Otherwise, you will stay visible to all unwanted partners who are in your Contacts.

Step 3. Clear Contact Cache

In one of our previous articles we wrote about how Telegram likes to cache contacts and add deleted items back to Google contacts.

That’s why you’d better go to Settings and delete synced Contacts.

On iOS and iPadOS:

• go to Settings;
• Privacy and Security;
• scroll down and tap on Data settings;
• tap Delete Synced Contacts.
• On iOS and iPadOS you will also need to re-enable the sync afterwards as it will get automatically deactivated:

On Android:

• tap on Menu icon;
• select Settings;
• dive into Privacy and Security;
• scroll down and tap Delete Synced Contacts:

One more (unpleasant) thing. Some time can pass since you change these settings until the person will lose you from the sight. The thing is that Telegram caches the Contact list. So if you are already in someone contacts he/she might be able to see that you are on Telegram for some period of time. You will disappear immediately in case if that person clears cached contacts.

What Will Happen?

Once you’ve done everything as I explained, nobody who is not in your contacts will be able to know whether or not your have Telegram on your number no matter if they have your number in contacts or not. You will be suggested to chat and call only to people who are in your contacts just the way the setting is formulated.

Even if someone will try to manually add your phone number to Telegram, they will see that you are “not on Telegram yet” :

Who Will See You Anyways

So, who sees your number:

1. People from your Contacts who also added your phone number to their contacts (either on a phone or on Windows PC). If you know phone number you will see the username. Whereas you won’t be able to know the user’s phone number if you only know the username.
2. Those, whom you shared your number with. You can share your number in the chat and there is also such an option in the settings, that allows you to configure the exclusion list and specify contacts who will be able to see your phone number.

Wrapping Words

Please let us know in the comments whether or not you like such privacy-related articles. We will appreciate very much if you share the guide. Thank you and be safe on the Internet! Have a nice day!

Read next: How to hide your Caller ID on Android