Telegram Drive turns Telegram's familiar file storage into a focused, desktop-style workspace. The app connects directly to Telegram with credentials you provide; it does not run a separate file-storage or relay service. Every application feature is available without payment.
[!IMPORTANT]
Telegram Drive is an independent project and is not affiliated with Telegram FZ-LLC. Files remain subject to Telegram's account, service, and per-file limits. Telegram Drive should not be treated as literally unlimited storage or as the only backup of important data.
Contents
At a glance
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| Platforms |
Windows, macOS Intel, macOS Apple Silicon, Linux, Android, and Google TV |
| Storage model |
Saved Messages is the home location; Telegram channels can be presented as folders |
| Transfers |
Files, folders, drag and drop, remote URLs, durable queues, background operation, and retry controls |
| Media |
Image preview, PDF viewing, audio playback, video streaming, thumbnails, and archive tools |
| Desktop integrations |
Folder Sync, local REST API, WebDAV, local share links, tray controls, and native notifications |
| Privacy |
Local configuration and caches, opt-in crash reporting, loopback-only local servers, and no separate file relay |
| Languages |
24 selectable locales plus automatic system-language selection |
| Price |
Every feature is free; an optional one-time $5 supporter license removes sponsor placements for life on up to three supported devices total |
Download and install
Download prebuilt packages from the latest desktop release.
| Platform |
Release asset |
Notes |
| Windows x64 |
Telegram.Drive_*_x64-setup.exe |
NSIS installer; the required Microsoft Visual C++ runtime is prepared by the installer |
| macOS — Apple Silicon |
Telegram.Drive_*_aarch64.dmg |
For M-series Macs |
| macOS — Intel |
Telegram.Drive_*_x64.dmg |
For Intel-based Macs |
| Linux x64 |
.AppImage, .deb, .rpm, or .pkg.tar.zst |
Choose the package suited to your distribution; Arch packages remain managed by pacman |
| Android / Google TV |
Signed APK from the latest applicable Android preview |
Android 7.0 or newer; sideloaded outside Google Play |
Desktop release assets also include updater/signature sidecars where applicable. Download installers only from this repository's GitHub Releases page. See the Linux packaging and rendering guide for Arch installation, updater ownership, diagnostics, and AppImage safe mode.
First-time setup
Telegram requires third-party clients to use an application API ID and API hash. Telegram Drive does not provide shared credentials.
- Sign in at my.telegram.org and open API development tools.
- Create a Telegram application and copy its
api_id and api_hash.
- Install and open Telegram Drive, then enter those credentials locally.
- Authenticate with your phone number and login code, or use QR login. If Telegram cloud-password protection is enabled, complete that step as well.
- Open Saved Messages or select/create Telegram channels to use as folders.
[!WARNING]
Treat the API hash, Telegram login codes, session data, encryption credentials, REST keys, and WebDAV links as secrets. Do not paste them into issues, logs, screenshots, or support messages.
How it works
Telegram Drive uses Telegram's MTProto API for authentication and file operations:
- Saved Messages appears as the main personal storage location.
- Telegram channels created or selected by the app can appear as folders.
- Transfers move directly between the application and Telegram.
- Desktop metadata, settings, queues, sync state, thumbnails, and preview caches stay on the local device.
- Standard uploads are stored in Telegram in their normal form. Optional TDENC2 uploads are encrypted locally before transfer.
The application caps a Telegram object at exactly 2,000,000,000 bytes. Encrypted files need additional envelope space, so their maximum original plaintext size is slightly lower.
Features
File management and organization
- Grid and list views with virtualized rendering for large folders.
- Adjustable file-card sizing from 50% to 200%.
- Filename search, persistent sorting, multi-select, range selection, and bulk actions.
- Upload, download, rename, copy, move, and delete workflows where Telegram permits them.
- Drag-and-drop uploads and internal drag-and-drop organization.
- Folder creation, rename, deletion, visibility controls, and custom local folder groups.
- Whole-folder uploads with optional ZIP creation before transfer.
- Remote URL uploads with progress, cancellation, retries, redirects, bounded size checks, and resumable ranges when supported by the source server.
- Duplicate-file, empty-folder, media-metadata, and storage-insight tools through the local REST API.
Reliable transfers and desktop operation
- Durable desktop upload and download queues that recover across window and application restarts.
- Independent upload/download concurrency controls, bandwidth controls, pause, resume, retry, cancel, cooldown, network-waiting, and vault-unlock states.
- Background operation from the system tray while transfers are active.
- Native transfer notifications for completion, failure, pause, and attention-required states, with per-category controls.
- Suspend, resume, network-recovery, and Telegram flood-wait handling.
- Verified downloads written through private temporary files and atomically published to their destination.
- A versioned local desktop file inventory so previously scanned folders appear while Telegram reconciliation continues.
Viewing, playback, and archives
- Lazy-loaded thumbnails and bounded memory/disk preview caches.
- A desktop image viewer with zoom, pan, fit-to-window, actual-size, wheel, double-click, and keyboard navigation controls.
- Built-in PDF viewer and audio player.
- Video playback with seeking, HLS/fMP4 streaming, remuxing/transcoding fallbacks, and cache recovery for supported plaintext media.
- Native Android playback with system media controls, resume, subtitle/audio-track selection, playback speed, and Picture-in-Picture where supported.
- ZIP, RAR, and 7z archive browsing and extraction, including extraction back into Telegram Drive where the platform supports it.
- Offline preview-cache controls for recently viewed standard files.
Some media depends on operating-system codec support or FFmpeg. Supported protected audio, video, and PDF content can use authenticated local byte-range streaming while the vault is unlocked, without publishing a persistent plaintext copy. See encrypted-file limitations.
Sharing and local integrations
- Password-protected local download links with optional expiration, listing, and revocation.
- Native Telegram message links for files in public channels.
- An opt-in desktop REST API for programmatic file, folder, bulk, storage, thumbnail, and media operations.
- Opt-in desktop WebDAV access for mounting Telegram Drive in compatible file managers.
- Optional, passphrase-encrypted settings backup through the user's own Telegram Saved Messages. Credentials, API/WebDAV keys, supporter activation, proxy details, and file data are excluded.
[!NOTE]
REST, WebDAV, and Telegram Drive share links are served by the running desktop application. They are not hosted public internet links. Keep the app open, do not forward its local ports, and protect every generated password, key, and capability URL.
Personalization, language, and network controls
- System, light, dark, and default appearance preferences.
- Built-in theme presets and a custom-theme editor.
- Reduced-motion and interface-performance preferences.
- 24 selectable production locales with locale-aware dates, numbers, file sizes, and transfer rates.
- Right-to-left document direction and bidirectional-text protections for Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.
- SOCKS5 and HTTP/HTTPS proxy routing with proxy credentials stored in the operating system's secure credential manager.
- Configurable VPN-oriented timeouts, retries, keep-alive behavior, polling, bandwidth, transfer chunk size, and archive limits.
- Signed desktop updates on supported self-updating packages; pacman-managed Arch installs open the verified release for package-manager updates.
- Android share-sheet intake, foreground transfers, and native downloaded-file publication.
Screenshots
Screenshots show representative workflows; small details may change between releases.
Desktop
| Folder and list management |
Video playback |
 |
 |
Android
| Files |
Transfer queue |
 |
 |
Additional desktop and mobile captures are available in the screenshots directory.
Folder Sync (desktop)
Folder Sync is an opt-in, bidirectional mapping between a local directory and one Telegram channel on Windows, macOS, or Linux. It compares three states—the current local tree, the current remote tree, and the last successfully synced tree—before changing either side.
Safety behavior includes:
- Explicit conflicts instead of silent overwrites when local and remote versions both change.
- Keep Local, Keep Remote, and Keep Both conflict choices.
- A greater-than-50% mass-deletion guard.
- Atomic temporary-file downloads and exact transfer-size checks.
- Protection against nested mappings, duplicate remote paths, reserved temporary names, incomplete remote scans, and platform-incompatible filenames.
- Vault-aware queue pauses for encrypted mappings.
- A 50,000 file-bearing-message safety ceiling per mapped channel.
Folder Sync is disabled until enabled in Settings → Folder Sync. Read the Folder Sync guide before mapping an important directory, and keep a separate tested backup.
Optional client-side encryption (alpha)
Telegram Drive includes opt-in encrypted transfers using the versioned TDENC2 envelope. Standard uploads remain the default. Encryption can be selected as a default for future uploads or chosen for an individual upload.
| Mode |
Protection |
Required to unlock |
| Standard |
Existing plaintext Telegram upload |
Nothing |
| Vault |
Encrypts with a key held in the local encrypted vault |
Unlocked vault |
| File passphrase |
Adds a passphrase slot to the individual file |
File passphrase |
| Vault + file passphrase |
Adds both vault and per-file passphrase access |
Any supported valid slot |
The implementation provides streaming XChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption before upload, authenticated streaming downloads, optional protection of the original filename and MIME type, vault auto-lock controls, recovery-bundle export/import, per-file state badges, and encryption-aware transfer queues.
[!CAUTION]
Telegram Drive cannot recover, reset, or reconstruct a lost vault passphrase, file passphrase, encryption key, or unusable recovery bundle. Protect and test your recovery material and keep an independent backup of important files. Lost credentials or damaged recovery material can make encrypted data permanently unrecoverable.
The encryption design and implementation have not received an independent security audit. Use isolated test data first. This alpha feature is not a substitute for a tested backup strategy.
Current encrypted-file limitations
The following operations fail closed for encrypted objects while retaining their normal behavior for standard files:
- In-app encrypted image and archive previews.
- Encrypted thumbnails, HLS/fMP4 remuxing, and transcoding.
- Local plaintext share links and REST/local-server plaintext access.
- WebDAV read, overwrite, rename, move, copy, and delete operations.
- Remote rename of encrypted Telegram media.
- Plaintext-to-encrypted migration, decrypt-in-place migration, rekey/slot-management UI, and full format migration.
TDENC2-protected audio, video, and PDF content can stream in supported in-app viewers while the vault is unlocked. The session-scoped credential is revoked when the vault locks, and the app does not publish a persistent plaintext copy. Download and authenticate other encrypted files before opening them in another application.
Privacy and security
- The Telegram API ID and application state are stored locally. The API hash is kept separately in the desktop operating-system credential manager or Android Keystore; legacy plaintext values are removed only after secure migration succeeds.
- Telegram session data, settings, transfer state, sync metadata, encryption registry data, and vault material are stored locally in the application's data directories.
- Standard uploads send ordinary file content to Telegram. TDENC2 uploads send ciphertext, although Telegram can still observe transport/account metadata such as ciphertext size, time, account, and destination channel.
- The project does not operate a separate file-relay service.
- Crash reporting is disabled by default and requires explicit consent. Reports exclude file names, paths, contents, messages, Telegram identifiers, credentials, phone numbers, and user-entered values.
- The REST API and WebDAV server are disabled by default and bind only to
127.0.0.1.
- The REST API stores only a hash of its generated key; the plaintext key is shown once.
- WebDAV capability links are shown once and can be revoked by regeneration.
- Proxy credentials use the operating system's secure credential manager.
- Optional supporter verification receives no Telegram credentials or file activity and does not create a purchaser email profile.
Read the complete Privacy Policy, WebDAV guide, and REST API reference.
Languages
Telegram Drive supports a System language preference and these 24 selectable locales:
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|
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| English |
Spanish |
Russian |
Ukrainian |
| Polish |
Persian |
Urdu |
Malay |
| Simplified Chinese |
Traditional Chinese |
French |
Italian |
| Arabic |
Brazilian Portuguese |
German |
Hindi |
| Bengali (Bangladesh) |
Indonesian |
Filipino (Philippines) |
Turkish |
| Thai (Thailand) |
Japanese |
Korean |
Vietnamese |
Locale selection and formatting are production-supported. Some translated entries may still fall back to English, and full native-language, legal-copy, RTL, long-string, CJK, and accessibility review remains ongoing.
Optional $5 lifetime ad-free supporter license
Every Telegram Drive feature is available to non-paying users. Supported desktop and Android builds offer an optional $5.00 USD Lifetime Ad-Free Supporter License that removes sponsor placements on up to three supported Windows, macOS, Linux, or Android devices in total after one verified PayPal payment.
- It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.
- Existing purchasers are not required to pay again after normal application updates.
- Active and offline-grace entitlements keep sponsor placements hidden.
- Reinstallation or another device can be restored with the recovery code, subject to the three-device allowance.
- Checkout is available only inside Settings → Privacy → Supporter.
- Payment does not create a Telegram Drive account or purchaser email profile.
[!WARNING]
Save the recovery code shown after activation. Payment alone does not bypass verification. Refunds are not automatic or guaranteed except where required by law. A refund, payment reversal, chargeback, or upheld dispute revokes the associated ad-free entitlement. Read the Supporter Terms before paying.
Android and Google TV (signed preview)
The Android build is currently distributed separately from the desktop release as a signed sideload preview. It is not available through Google Play.
- Open the Telegram Drive releases page and select the latest signed Android preview.
- Download the signed universal Android APK listed in that release.
- On Android, allow Install unknown apps for the browser or file manager you used.
- Open the APK and choose Install.
- Enter your own Telegram API ID and API hash on first launch.
Android requirements and notes:
Android 7.0 / API 24 or newer.
One signed APK supports phones, tablets, Android TV, and Google TV.
Google TV users can transfer the APK to the television or install it with ADB:
adb install Telegram-Drive-vX.Y.Z-android-universal.apk
Android validates the package signature during installation. Future compatible updates must use the same signing identity.
Release maintainers should follow the Android and Google TV release runbook.
Local REST API and WebDAV
Both integrations are desktop-only, disabled by default, and loopback-only.
| Integration |
Default address |
Authentication |
Access |
| REST API |
http://127.0.0.1:8550/api/v1 |
X-API-Key header |
File/folder operations, bulk actions, storage data, thumbnails, and media metadata |
| WebDAV |
`http://127.0.0.1:8551/dav/<private-tok |
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Telegram Drive is a local-first desktop and mobile app (built with Tauri, Rust, and React) that turns your own Telegram account's Saved Messages and channels into a focused file workspace for organizing, transferring, previewing, streaming, syncing, and sharing files.