# How to Delete Your Telegram Account (Manual & Auto Deletion)

1\. **Manually Delete Your Telegram Account**

If you want to delete your Telegram account permanently, follow these steps:

1. Go to: https://my.telegram.org/auth?to=delete
2. Enter your phone number (including the country code, e.g., +86 for China).
3. Enter the confirmation code sent to your Telegram app (a string of letters).
4. Click the blue **“Sign In”** button.
5. In the "Why are you leaving" field, you can write anything or leave it blank.
6. Click **“Done”** to permanently delete your account.

**⚠ Important Notes:**

* All messages, contacts, groups, and channels will be **permanently deleted** and **cannot be recovered**.
* Groups and channels you created will lose their owner, but other admins will retain control.

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#### 2. **Re-registering with the Same Phone Number**

* Re-registering with the same number too frequently may result in a **temporary block** (e.g. you may not be able to sign up again for a few days).
* A newly registered account is **completely separate** from the old one:
  * It has a new user ID.
  * You can set up a new profile and rejoin groups.
  * You **cannot restore** old messages, contacts, or groups.
  * You **can** join groups you were previously banned from.

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#### 3. **Auto-Delete Inactive Accounts**

Telegram has a self-destruct feature that automatically deletes inactive accounts after a set period of no logins.

To set it up:

> Telegram > Settings > Privacy & Security > Delete my account if&#x20;

Available durations:

* 1 month
* 3 months
* 6 months
* 1 year

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#### 4. **Why Use Auto-Delete?**

Telegram is a free, non-commercial app. To save server storage, it removes long-inactive accounts automatically. More importantly, it protects your account in case of SIM card loss:

* If you lose your SIM card and didn’t enable **two-step verification** or **SIM PIN**, someone else could take over your Telegram account.
* If you had set your account to self-destruct after 1 month, your data would be automatically erased before it could be misused.
