Send a photo the normal way and Telegram compresses it, because a chat wants pictures that load instantly. Send it as a file and the bytes arrive exactly as they left, extension and all.
Both behaviours are correct. The mistake is having only one habit, and the second mistake is not knowing that an uncompressed file carries everything the camera wrote into it.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Send a photo or video without compression.
- check_circle Say when the original actually matters and when it does not.
- check_circle Know what metadata travels with an uncompressed file.
- check_circle Find those files again afterwards, on any device.
Two routes to the same picture: the gallery compresses, the file picker does not.
upload_file Two doors in the attachment menu
Picking a photo from the gallery produces a compressed copy sized for a phone screen. It is the right default: it sends in a second on a weak connection, opens instantly for the recipient, and looks identical on the device most people will view it on.
Choosing the file option instead sends the actual file. The original resolution, the original format, the original name. It arrives as a document with a size next to it rather than as a picture in the message stream, and it is what you want whenever somebody is going to do something with the image other than look at it.
The standard limit is two gigabytes per file, and four for Premium accounts. That is per file, not per account — there is no total allowance to run out of, which is what makes this a reasonable place to keep things rather than only to send them.
Four situations, two answers
The test is what happens to the picture next, not how much you like it.
visibility A picture in a conversation
crop It will be printed, edited or cropped
cloud_done Storing rather than sending
location_on When compression is the safer option
Compressed for looking at, file for doing something with. And remember the file brings its history along.
settings Sending one
- Open the attachment menu The paperclip in any chat.
- Choose the file option rather than the gallery On most clients you can then browse the gallery from inside it, which is the step people miss.
- Or use the send menu after selecting Several clients offer send without compression when you hold the send button or open its menu.
- Check the size before sending Two gigabytes per file, four with Premium.
- On a desktop, drag the file into the chat Dropping it asks which of the two ways you meant.
This page is the one switch. The curriculum step is everything around it: what compression actually does to an image, streaming large files back rather than downloading them, and how to build a cloud archive you can still search in five years.
At a glance
- 1Send as a file
Files keep full quality without compression.
- 2Location travels
Files keep the photo's location data; strip it for strangers.
- 3Find them later
Files appear in the chat's Files tab on every device.
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