In this article
An account is registered with a phone number and reached through a handle. Set one and people can find you, message you, and open a link to you without ever seeing the number underneath.
Which is the most useful five minutes of setup in the app, and worth spending on the name rather than on the settings around it.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Claim a handle and know what it exposes.
- check_circle Choose one you will not regret in two years.
- check_circle Understand what changing it breaks.
- check_circle Say what it does not protect.
One handle, and the number stops being the thing you hand out.
key Two identifiers doing different jobs
The number is what the account is registered with and what recovery runs through. The handle is what other people use. Keeping those separate is the whole point, and it matters because a phone number is the least changeable thing most people own — it is attached to a bank, a delivery, an account recovery somewhere, and it is permanent in a way a handle is not.
A handle costs nothing and can be replaced in seconds. So the sensible arrangement is that everything public runs through it: a card, a profile elsewhere, a message board, a group description. The number stays with the people who already have it for reasons that have nothing to do with messaging.
It is also how you become reachable at all by somebody who does not have your number. That is the half people notice later — a handle is not only protection, it is an address.
What should I actually choose?
Something you would be comfortable reading out to a stranger and still comfortable with in three years. The common regrets are the same few: a joke that stopped being funny, a job or a city you have since left, a year, and anything you would have to spell twice on the phone. Your own name, or the name of the thing you make, ages better than anything clever.
What are the rules for it?
Letters, digits and underscores, starting with a letter, and a length in the range of a short word rather than a sentence. The practical constraint is stricter than the technical one: a handle that has to be dictated benefits enormously from having no underscores and no digits at the end, because those are what people get wrong.
What happens if I change it?
Every link containing the old one stops working, immediately — including the ones in other people's messages, on your business card, in a channel description somebody wrote last year, and in search results. The account is unaffected and your chats are untouched, but the address changes and nothing forwards. That is the argument for choosing carefully rather than for never changing it.
Does the old one become available to somebody else?
Yes — a released handle can be taken. This is worth thinking about for anything that was publicly associated with you, because links pointing at the old address will then reach whoever claimed it. If a handle has been printed anywhere that outlives your control of it, keeping the account on it is cheaper than the alternative.
Does a handle hide my number?
It means people can reach you without one. Whether anybody can see yours is a separate setting, and whether anybody can find you by typing your number is a third one. The handle is the reason you no longer need to give the number out; the settings are what decide who can see it. Both halves are worth doing, and doing only the handle leaves the rest as it was.
Is it safe to post publicly?
It is designed to be, and it is far safer than posting a number. What it does bring is messages from strangers, since being findable is the point — and that is manageable with the settings that control who may write to you. If the volume ever becomes a problem, replacing the handle is a real option in a way that replacing a phone number is not.
person_search A handle is how you are searched for
Beyond being an address, it is an entry in a public index: people type handles into search, and a memorable one is found while an approximate one is not. For anybody with something to be found for — a shop, a channel, a service — that makes the choice a small piece of naming work rather than a formality.
It is also how impersonation works. Somebody copying your name and picture needs a handle close to yours, and the closer yours is to a plain readable word, the more obvious the imitation looks. Handles built from underscores and digits give an impersonator plenty of room to produce something that looks equally plausible.
settings Setting one up
- Open your profile settings and set a username It is free and immediate.
- Pick something you can say aloud Underscores and digits cause errors.
- Avoid years, jobs and jokes Those are the regrets.
- Use the link, not the number Anywhere public.
- Check the two number settings separately The handle does not change them.
- Change it only when you mean it Every old link breaks.
This page claims one handle. The curriculum step is the system around it: how public addresses are discovered, what a private invite link does differently, and what happens to either when it is revoked.
At a glance
- 1Claim a username
People can find and message you by @username without your number.
- 2Choose for the long run
Pick a name you will still want in two years.
- 3Changing it breaks links
Old t.me links stop working and the name becomes free for others.
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