Telegram is one of the messaging applications that has managed to become very popular in recent years. Its user interface might not be as big as WhatsApp, however, it can be considered as a very popular messaging app with a handful of fantastic features. It’s great how messaging apps like Telegram have made our lives a lot easier, but their data consumption can be a headache. By default, Telegram downloads all the media automatically and this can be a major drain to your data. However, you can always turn off Telegram auto-download if you’d want to. Here is a detailed explanation of how you can do that.
Turn off Telegram auto-download
As I mentioned before, Telegram automatically downloads all the media by default. This means that when you are viewing a private chat, a group chat, or a channel, all the multimedia files including photos, videos and audio files are all downloaded automatically. This is because Telegram wants to make all the files available to view as fast as possible.
This is of course a great feature to have all the multimedia files downloaded and ready to view, however, this can drastically increase your data usage. Normally, you might only download a few number of selected multimedia files to view. But in the auto-download mode, all the media is downloaded, even the files that you didn’t want to view. There is no economical justification to download all the media if you are on a limited data plan.
To decrease data usage, you are able to turn off Telegram auto-download right from its settings menu. When you turn off Telegram auto-download, all the multimedia files including photos, videos and audio files will be downloaded if you want them to. This will help you to decrease your data usage to a great extent.
Steps to turn off Telegram auto-download
As I previously mentioned, if you are on a limited data plan, it is strongly advised that you turn off Telegram auto-download. To do so, you can follow these steps. These steps are the same on both Android and iOS phones.
- Run Telegram application on your phone.
- Tap on the gear shaped icon to enter Telegram settings.
- On the settings menu, choose “Data & Storage“.
- Under Automatic media download section toggle off “Auto-Download Media“.
By following these steps, you will be able to stop Telegram from automatically downloading all the media files and selectively download the media you want. However, you can also allow automatic media download to only a particular type of media. To do so, toggle on the Auto-Download Media option and you can choose to enable or disable automatic media download for Photos, Videos, Files, Voice Messages, and Video Messages.
For example, by enabling automatic media download and going to the Photos section, You can choose photos from whom to be automatically downloaded. Photos received from Contacts, in Private Chats, in Group Chats, or in Channels. You can also choose photos to be automatically downloaded on mobile data or on WiFi connection.
Turn off Telegram auto-download on desktop
In order to turn off media download on Telegram desktop, you will need to take the following steps:
- Launch Telegram on your computer and click on the three line icon from the top left corner.
- Click on Settings from the opened menu.
- Scroll down and click on Automatic media download settings under Chat Settings.
- Untick all the boxes to disable auto-download completely. You can also tick the boxes you want to keep auto-download enable for them.
- Click on Save.
