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Minimus Heximus
Asked: 2016-01-09 19:44:25 +0800 CST

How can I use multiple accounts with Telegram?

  • 772

Is there a way to have two copies of telegram app in Ubuntu each with a different account?

It seems copying the app in another folder does not work.

telegram

12 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Update of June 2020

    Telegram destop now supports multiple account out of the box:

    https://telegram.org/blog/profile-videos-people-nearby-and-more#multiple-accounts-on-telegram-desktop

    Old Update

    For macOS, use the official telegram for macOS: https://macos.telegram.org/ . It supports multiple accounts out of the box.

    Old solution

    With telegram desktop installed:

    mkdir ~/.telegram2ndprofile 
telegram -many -workdir ~/.telegram2ndprofile

    Source

    • 37

  2. What I do is run the Telegram binary as a different user

    cd ~/Downloads/Telegram/
sudo -u otheruser ./Telegram
    • 15

  3. You can use Franz.

    Franz allows you to add each service many times. This makes Franz the perfect tool to manage multiple business and private accounts at the same time. You could even use five different Facebook Messenger accounts at once, if some inexplicable reason urges you to do so.

    • 13

  4. If you still want a tidier option using the abumalick's answer, you can add additional action(s) to the original launcher to add extra profile(s).

    1. cd ~/.local/share/ goes to the directory where Telegram Desktop data are stored under your home hierarchy;
    2. mkdir Telegram2 makes a new folder for the second Telegram profile;
    3. gedit applications/telegramdesktop.desktop opens Telegram Desktop launcher in text editor;
    4. Finally, add the following lines to the end:

    (Address the Telegram executable file for Exec and also replace your username instead of $user)

    Actions=SecondAccount;

[Desktop Action SecondAccount]
Name=Second Account
Exec=/home/$user/complete/address/to/the/Telegram -many -workdir /home/$user/.local/share/Telegram2

    You may need a log out to see the changes take effect. Here’s how it looks on Ubuntu 20.04:

    Telegram Desktop second instance

    – tested on the latest Telegram v2.0

    • 9

  5. Three Ways:

    1. Install Chrome and there install Telegram from the Web Store.

    2. Install Wine and Telegram for Windows

    3. Enter in https://web.telegram.org/

    • 4

  6. You may try Cutegram. It supports multiple accounts (you can use them simultaneously).

    Update: It seems development of Cutegram has ceased.

    • 3

  7. You can use a multi-protocol, multi-account client like Pidgin (or anything based on libpurple):

    1. Add a package repository with Telegram support for libpurple:

      sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt update

    2. Install Pidgin and the Telegram plug-in for it:

      sudo apt install pidgin telegram-purple

    3. Start Pidgin and set it up to use as many Telegram accounts as you like.

    • 3

  8. For each instance you wish to open, create a fresh directory with Telegram and Updater files. Now create Telegram.desktop (or whatever name.desktop) file with this content:

    [Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Telegram
Exec="$(dirname $(realpath %k))"/Telegram -workdir "$(dirname $(realpath %k))"
Categories=Internet;Messenger #Optional
Icon=Telegram #Optional
Terminal=false

    Put this file inside your Telegram instance folder, make it executable, and run.
    This will work even if you create a symlink of .desktop file and run it.

    • 3

  9. You can use rambox, Franz or can login in the browser and use web.telegram.org

    Att.

    • 2

  10. Here's another method which applies to telegram-cli (available on Github, a working fork for Ubuntu 18.08 is here. Also available as a snap).

    This is an improved version from this answer.

    1. Before the first run, edit 'config' file to create telegram profiles.

    The config file is located under .telegram-cli directory. Depends on your installation method, you can find the file under $HOME/.telegram-cli/ (if built from source) or $HOME/snap/telegram-cli/25/.telegram-cli/ (if installed using snap).

    Open the file and edit the following:

    ## This is an empty config file
## Feel free to put something here
profile1 = {
config_directory = "path/to/profile1";
msg_num = true;
};

profile2 = {
config_directory = "path/to/profile2";
msg_num = true;
};
    1. Once profiles are created, run the command like the following (on different terminals):

    telegram-cli -p profile1 and telegram-cli -p profile2

    You will be asked different phone numbers for each profiles that you have created. Also telegram-cli will create a different folder for each profiles.

    TIPS: I find it very convenient using a telegram username in place of profile1 or profile2

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