How to stop Telegram photos from showing in your gallery

Telegram doesn't have to put chat photos in your gallery. Its Save to Gallery settings decide which photos and videos it copies there: from every chat, from some types of chat, or only from the chats you pick. Here's how to stop Telegram saving photos to your gallery on Android, how to clean up what it has already saved, and how to keep the private ones somewhere safer.

Menu names change between Telegram versions. The steps below follow the current Android app; on older versions, look under Chat Settings instead.

Stop Telegram saving photos to your gallery

1. Open Telegram and go to Settings → Data and Storage.
2. Under Save to Gallery, open Private Chats and turn off saving.
3. Do the same for Groups and Channels.

Each type of chat has its own settings, for photos, for videos and for how large a video can be before Telegram stops saving it. Telegram's own blog describes it this way: you choose what's saved by its size, its type and which chat it came from.

Save only from the chats you choose

Each type of chat also takes exceptions. Add a chat as an exception to keep saving its media while saving is off for the rest, or to stop one chat saving while the others carry on. A family group can keep filling your gallery while private chats stay out of it.

Media still downloads, just not to your gallery

Turning off Save to Gallery doesn't stop Telegram downloading photos. They still download to Telegram's own storage when you open them, or by themselves, depending on Automatic media download in the same Data and Storage menu, and your gallery doesn't show them. Telegram keeps chat media in your Telegram cloud too, so you can clear it from the phone and download it again later.

To put one photo in your gallery on purpose, open it, tap ⋮ and choose Save to gallery.

Clean up what Telegram already saved

Changing the setting doesn't remove what's already in your gallery. On Android, Telegram saves photos to a Pictures/Telegram folder and videos to Movies/Telegram, so your gallery shows them in a Telegram album. Open it and delete what you don't want there, or hide the private ones properly, as below.

Google Photos may already have backed them up. Our guide to copies left in the cloud shows how to check, and how to stop Google Photos backup shows how to keep a folder out of it.

Hiding the album isn't the same as protecting it

Hiding the Telegram album in your gallery, or adding a .nomedia file to its folder, keeps the photos out of view. They're still ordinary files, though, which a file manager or any app with storage access can open. Our guide to hiding photos on Android compares the options that really lock them.

Keep private Telegram photos in Hidey

For photos and videos that need real protection, move them into an encrypted vault. In Hidey, a vault app:

1. Tap +, choose Photos and videos, open the folders tab and pick Telegram.
2. Select the ones to hide. Hidey encrypts each one on your phone, checks the encrypted copy, then deletes the original from your gallery.

For a photo Telegram never saved to your gallery, open it in Telegram, share it and choose Hidey. Telegram keeps its own copy in the chat, so delete it there too if you need to. Hiding is free.

With Pro, auto-hide can do it for you. Add Pictures/Telegram and Movies/Telegram as auto-hide folders, and leave Save to Gallery on for the chats you want it to catch: whatever Telegram saves moves into the vault on its own within about 15 minutes, even while Hidey is locked. If Google Photos backs up those folders, turn that off first, or it may upload a copy before Hidey moves it.

WhatsApp's setting works differently: here's how to hide WhatsApp photos from your gallery. And for videos from anywhere, see how to hide videos on Android.