In this article
Every device you sign in to on Telegram is an independent session talking to the servers directly. Your desktop does not need your phone to be awake, or switched on, or in the same country.
That convenience is also the reason the Devices screen matters. Each session is a key to your account that stays valid until someone revokes it — and most people have forgotten at least one.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Read the Devices list and recognise a session you do not want.
- check_circle Sign in to a computer in seconds by scanning a QR code.
- check_circle End a session remotely from any other device you are signed in to.
- check_circle Set forgotten sessions to expire on their own, so the list stops growing.
The QR code is generated by the computer and read by the phone — the direction people usually try first is the wrong one.
devices Sessions, not mirrors
A mirrored desktop client is a window onto a phone: the phone holds the messages, the desktop asks it for them, and when the phone sleeps the desktop goes quiet. That is how several messengers still work.
Telegram's clients each hold their own session and talk to the servers themselves. Nothing is relayed through the phone, so the phone's state is irrelevant. The same architecture is why a draft you started on one device is waiting on another, and why signing in somewhere new brings your whole history rather than a recent slice of it.
Reading the Devices list
Each entry shows a platform, an approximate location and a last-seen time. Here is how to judge one.
check_circle A device you use
schedule A phone you replaced, a laptop you sold
warning Something you cannot place
The one that matters: an old session is not harmless just because the device is gone.
qr_code_scanner Signing in and signing out
- Open Devices Settings, then Devices. On some versions it sits under Privacy and Security as Active Sessions. Both are the same list.
- Add a computer with the QR code Open Telegram Desktop or the web client, which shows a QR code. On the phone, tap Link Desktop Device and point the camera at it. No password typing.
- End a session Tap any entry and choose Terminate Session. It stops immediately, wherever that device is.
- Set an expiry The same screen has an automatic termination option — a week, a month, six months. Inactive sessions then end on their own.
public_off Signing in on a machine you do not own
The web clients are the right choice on a shared or borrowed computer: nothing is installed, and signing out leaves no local data behind. The desktop app keeps a local cache, which is fine on your own machine and not on a library one.
Either way, the habit that matters is checking the Devices list afterwards. A session left open in a place you cannot go back to is exactly the case the remote termination exists for.
This page is the Devices screen. The curriculum step covers what sits behind it: how state stays consistent across clients, what happens when two devices act at once, and where Secret Chats sit outside all of it.
At a glance
- 1Read Devices
Settings › Devices lists every signed-in session.
- 2Sign in by QR
Scan the QR code on a computer from Settings › Devices › Add Device.
- 3Auto-expire
Set inactive sessions to end on their own.
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