Choosing the Installer or Portable Telegram for Windows

desktop_windows Two downloads, one application

The installer puts Telegram where Windows expects applications to live, registers an uninstaller, and stores your session under your user profile. It offers to start with Windows, and handles the tg:// links that let a web page open a chat for you.

The portable build is the same executable in a folder, with your session stored beside it rather than in your profile. It writes nothing to the registry, needs no administrator rights, and can sit on a USB stick. Nothing about it is stripped down: it is the full client, updating itself in the same way.

There is also a Microsoft Store edition, which is genuine and convenient if you prefer everything to arrive through the Store. It runs inside the Store's packaging and its updates follow the Store's schedule, so a new Telegram feature can reach it a little later than the website build.

folder_open tdata is your session, not your settings

Telegram Desktop keeps everything it needs in a single folder called tdata. With the installer it sits under your Windows user profile; with the portable build it sits next to the executable. Either way it holds the authorisation for your account, along with the local cache.

The convenient consequence is the one usually advertised: copy that folder to another Windows machine and Telegram opens already signed in, with no phone number and no code. People use this to move a desktop setup between computers, and it works.

The uncomfortable consequence is the same sentence read from the other direction. Anyone who can copy that folder is signed in as you, on their own computer, with everything in your account. No password was needed, no code was sent to your phone, and nothing appears on your screen while they read.

This is not a flaw — it is what "already logged in" has to mean for any desktop application. It is simply worth knowing, because it changes how you treat the folder. A portable Telegram on a USB stick is not a convenient shortcut you might lose; it is your account on a keyring.

Two further points follow from the same fact. If you are stepping away from a computer that is not yours, closing the window is not enough; log out from Settings, or delete the portable folder. And if you ever suspect a machine held a copy of your session, you do not need to work out what happened — open Settings and Devices on your phone, and end that session. It stops working immediately, wherever it is.

settings The first five minutes after installing

Telegram Desktop's defaults are sensible but general. Four adjustments make it behave like something you want running all day rather than something that interrupts you.

1. If you enable start with Windows, enable "launch minimised" too In Settings under Advanced. Without it, a full chat window lands on your screen every time the computer boots, which is how people end up turning autostart off again and then missing messages.
2. Set a download folder of your own Also under Advanced. Downloads otherwise join everything else in your Windows Downloads folder, and Telegram carries files that can be very large. A dedicated folder — ideally not on the drive Windows lives on — keeps that from becoming a problem you notice only when the disk is full.
3. Check hardware acceleration is on Under Advanced, in system integration. It is on by default and there is no reason to change it unless your machine has a graphics driver problem — in which case turning it off is the first thing to try when the interface stutters.
4. Turn on the local passcode if anyone else can use this computer Settings, then Privacy and Security. It locks the app and encrypts the local folder. Choose something you will remember: there is no recovery for it, and forgetting it means logging out and back in.

storage What the desktop client keeps on the disk

Everything Telegram stores locally is a cache: photographs, videos and files that were downloaded so they can be opened again without waiting. The chats themselves are not stored in any sense that matters, which is why the storage screen can be treated far more casually than it looks.

Under Settings, then Advanced, then Data and Storage, you can cap how long that cache is kept and how large it is allowed to grow. On a desktop with a large drive the generous default is fine. On a laptop with a small SSD, a limit of a few gigabytes and a month of retention is a sensible pair of numbers, and nothing is lost by it — anything cleared comes back from the servers when you scroll to it.

The setting people actually need more often is automatic downloading, on the same screen. A desktop client left running in a busy channel will fetch a great deal of video you never watch. Restricting automatic downloads to the chats you care about does more for both disk and bandwidth than any cache limit.

help Common questions at this stage