All Telegram contacts are saved on the app’s servers in the cloud. However, some users who use Telegram for business and marketing may want to sync their phone contacts with Telegram. Others may want to export their Telegram contacts. Here’s how you can do both.
Table of Contents
Sync Telegram Contacts
The steps to sync Telegram contacts are the same on both Android and iOS but I will be using the latter for this guide.
1. Open Telegram on your phone, go to Settings tab at the bottom, and select Privacy and Security option. Android users must open the hamburger menu (three-line icon) to find Settings.
2. Select Data Settings and then enable Sync Contacts option. Android users will find the Sync Contacts option directly under Security and Privacy menu.
It may take a few moments before phone contacts are synced to Telegram.
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Delete Synced Telegram Contacts
The process of syncing phone contacts with your Telegram account is reversible. You can disable sync and also delete synced contacts from Telegram servers easily. Disabling will only stop syncing new contacts with your Telegram account. You must delete it.
Note: If Sync Contacts option is enabled, the contacts will re-sync automatically in the background again. To avoid that, disable Sync Contacts option first and then delete synced contacts to remove them from Telegram servers.
1. Go back to Settings > Privacy and Security > Data Settings. Disable Sync Contacts
2. Select Delete Synced Contacts option below. Android users, again, will find this option in the Privacy and Security menu itself. Tap on Delete to confirm.
Not sure what that icon means on Telegram? Here is a list of all icons and symbols on Telegram and what they mean.
Export Telegram Contacts
You could export contacts in different formats in older versions of Telegram. However, Telegram dev team decided to remove that feature. You can still export Telegram data, including contacts, from the desktop app though.
Note: This below method won’t work on the web app. It won’t work if you are using an all-in-one app manager like Rambox either.
1. Open the Telegram desktop app and download the setup file. Install Telegram on your computer. Sign in by scanning the QR code.
2. Click on the hamburger menu (three-line icon) and go to Settings > Advanced.
3. Select Settings from the sidebar menu.
4. Click on Advanced.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the menu and click on Export Telegram data.
6. In the pop-up, you can choose what kind of data you want to export. Select Contacts list here and then click on Export button at the bottom.
7. You will receive a message from the official Telegram account with details of data requested, IP address, device name, etc. Tap on Allow at the bottom of the message to approve request.
8. Once allowed, the HTML file will be saved to your computer’s default download folder.
9. Click on export_results.html file to open the local link in your default browser. From there, you can view all your contacts.
10. This is how it looks. Just click on Contacts to view.
That’s it.
Pro Tip: Where to Find Telegram Downloaded Files on Android, iPhone, and PC
FAQs
1. How to convert HTML to Excel format?
There are plenty of web tools that you can find online using Google to convert contacts saved from Telegram in HTML format to Excel. They are mostly free to use but require you to upload the file. The success will vary on the type and quality of the tool.
2. Can you select which contacts to be exported?
No. It will export all the contacts in one go. Once the data is converted into a spreadsheet, you can easily manipulate it however you want.
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