Telegram is one of the largest players in the instant messaging platforms market. Although dwarfed by the billion-plus userbase boasted by Facebook-owned Whatsapp, it does offer some neat features that appeal to a niche audience of a few hundred million users online. One such feature offered by Telegram is Secret Chat, and here we explain what it is and how you can start a secret chat with a contact on Telegram.
Secret chats are meant for those who want more privacy than offered by the typical chats on Telegram. Secret chats use end-to-end encryption, which means only you and the recipient can see the conversation and do not leave any trace on the servers. Secret chats can only be accessed on the devices of origin as they are not a part of the Telegram cloud.
It has a key feature of self-destruct timer, which allows you to set a time after which the message alongwith any attachments will be deleted automatically. Secret chat does not allow forwarding messages and disables screenshots on most devices.
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How to start a secret chat in Telegram?
Open your Telegram app on your device and follow the steps below to start a secret chat.
- Tap on the Hamburger (three horizontal bars) icon.
- Then a menu will appear in that menu tap on the New Secret Chat option.
- Your contact list will appear. Select the contact with whom you want to begin a secret chat.
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How to set Self-destructing messages in Telegram?
As mentioned above, you can not take screenshots in secret chats, so we did what we could to make you understand the steps to set the key feature of secret chat.
- Tap on the Meatball (triple vertical dots) icon.
- Then a menu will appear in that menu tap on Set self-destruct timer option
- A box will appear in which you can select the time within which chats self-destruct. You can set the minimum time to one second and the maximum to a week. After selecting your preferred time tap on the Done button.
Every time the recipient reads the message sent by you, it will auto-delete in the selected time; and the same will happen to messages you receive.
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