Chatting app Telegram has added a handy new feature for people who don’t want to just share their phone number. That is how it works.
Telegram without phone number chat
Telegram has been a popular alternative to WhatsApp for years, but has a significantly smaller user base. Still, Telegram continues to regularly update itself with features not found in WhatsApp. Today’s new features show that this is still the case.
Today’s major update makes it possible to add other users to your contact list without sharing a phone number. It is still mandatory to link your number to Telegram if you want to use the app. You can also block anyone who tries to contact you in this way very quickly and easily, so that it cannot be abused.
Talk to people around you
As an extension of this, you can now also start a conversation with people in your immediate environment. This ‘People Near feature’ in the Contacts tab of Telegram you can turn this option on. You can then immediately see which people in the area have also turned on the function and you can immediately start a conversation.
This is useful, for example, for students, who can easily and without obligation get in touch with classmates or group members without having to share their number all the time. This can also be a fun way to get in touch with some new people at a festival this summer. Another way is to create a group app with your entire residential area, in order to stay better informed about each other.
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The new features for Telegram come with a custom app icon that you can toggle in the settings and a new design for how you can switch between different views (such as a dark mode). The update to Telegram that adds all this is available immediately for both iOS and Android.