In recent weeks, Telegram has seen a sudden uptick in new users, with 25 million signups reported in 72 hours alone earlier this month—which is generally attributed to the recent controversy surrounding WhatsApp and its updated terms and privacy policy. Of course, Telegram isn’t the only alternative to the popular messaging app; Signal had an outage of two days due to the sudden influx of users jumping over from WhatsApp.
If you’re making the switch from WhatsApp to Telegram, the company has just announced that you’ll be able to do so—although it isn’t the one-click-solution that many were hoping for. Instead, you’ll need to manually select chats that you want to bring over, although these include group chats within WhatsApp, as well as videos and documents.
Plus, this doesn’t just apply to WhatsApp—you can also import chats from Line and KakaoTalk.
“Over 100 million new users joined Telegram this January, seeking more privacy and freedom. But what about the messages and memories that remain in older apps?
“Starting today, everyone can bring their chat history – including videos and documents—to Telegram from apps like WhatsApp, Line and KakaoTalk. This works both for individual chats and groups”
Steps: Exporting your chat history to Telegram
- iOS: Open the Contact Info page for individual chats, or the Group Info page for group chats, and tap Export Chat. Then, select Telegram in the Share menu.
- Android: Open a WhatsApp individual or group chat, tap on the overflow menu > More > Export Chat. Then, select Telegram in the Share menu.
Telegram also says that the original timestamps of your messages will be maintained, and all members of the chat on Telegram will be able to see the messages. Additionally, you’ll be able to import chat histories with (or without) media files and documents, with Telegram promising that these will take up “virtually no space” on the device.
It’s important to remember that once you’ve done this, imported chat histories will no longer be protected by WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption protocol. Communications over Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted by default—this security only applies to Secret Chats on Telegram. You can read more about that here.
Besides the importing feature, the latest update for Telegram also offers users more control over certain security features, the ability to report “fake groups or channels”, along with updated volume adjustments for individual participants in voice chats.
While this option to export your chats out of WhatsApp is one that will certainly come in handy, the process does feel a little tedious. For one, you’ll need to individually export each chat history—there isn’t an option to simply export your entire WhatsApp chat history, which would be the most convenient method.
If you’re considering switching to Telegram, we recently published a guide that delves into the security and privacy features of WhatsApp, Telegram, and a number of other messaging app alternatives. Be sure to check that out before making a full-on transition to one of these messaging apps.
To find out more, click here.
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