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Editorial Team · 2026-10-06
Why Telegram Isn't End-to-End Encrypted by Default
By Editorial Team · published 2026-09-15 · updated 2026-09-15
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Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default because its ordinary chats are designed to live on Telegram's servers, and a server that holds your history has to be able to read it. The company's own FAQ describes two layers: "server-client encryption is used in Cloud Chats (private and group chats), Secret Chats use an additional layer of client-client encryption." Only the second is end-to-end, it has to be started per conversation, and it works on one device. Threema makes the opposite choice — every message end-to-end encrypted, no phone number, no data collected per Google Play — and pays for it with a smaller user base and a one-time price. Neither is wrong. They are selling different things.
What it actually means
End-to-end encryption means the message is scrambled on your phone with a key only the recipient's phone holds, so nothing in between — including the company running the service — can read it. Server-client encryption means the message is scrambled between your phone and the server, and the server decrypts it to store and forward it.
Telegram Messenger uses the second for what it calls Cloud Chats: every private and group conversation you open by default. The FAQ is direct about the consequence for data requests: "Secret chats use end-to-end encryption, thanks to which we don't have any data to disclose. To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption, Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure." That second sentence is the admission — cloud chat data exists on servers in readable form, protected by where it is stored rather than by being unreadable.
A Secret Chat is the exception, started by opening a contact's profile, tapping the menu and choosing Start Secret Chat. The FAQ adds the limits: "Telegram secret chats are device-specific. If you start a secret chat with a friend on one of your devices, this chat will only be available on that device. If you log out, you will lose all your secret chats." A secret chat shows a lock in its title bar; an ordinary one does not.
Threema has no such distinction. Every message, call and file is end-to-end encrypted, there is no cloud copy to fall back on, and the account is a random eight-character ID rather than a phone number.
Why it works that way
Because Telegram's product is the cloud. Unlimited storage for chat history and files, every device showing the same messages from the first one, groups of thousands, folders, bots, and a new phone that needs only a login — all of that requires the server to hold the messages and hand them to any device that asks. End-to-end encryption would break every one of those features, because the server could no longer read what it was asked to sync. Telegram's FAQ says as much when it explains why it keeps cloud chats: "so that you can access them from any devices without using third-party backups."
Its defence of that design is jurisdictional rather than cryptographic: cloud data is "stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions," with decryption keys split so that "several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data." The FAQ states that "to this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user messages to third parties, including governments." That is a promise about behaviour, not a property of the mathematics.
Threema's product is the opposite promise. Its security does not depend on where servers are or what the company decides: there is no phone number to tie an ID to a person, contacts are verified in person by scanning each other's QR codes, and Google Play's data safety card declares that the app collects no data at all. The cost is everything Telegram is good at — history lives on your device, a lost phone is a lost history unless you back it up yourself, and adding someone means exchanging IDs rather than finding them by number.
What it costs you in practice
On Telegram, the cost is knowing which chat you are in. Anything sent in an ordinary chat is readable on Telegram's servers and is governed by Telegram's policy and its multi-jurisdiction structure. A secret chat is unreadable to anyone but the two devices, but it does not sync, does not survive logging out, and cannot be a group. The privacy mark in our review is 6.0 for exactly this: the default is not what most people assume, and the data safety card lists seven collected categories including precise location.
On Threema, the cost is people and money. It is a single payment — $7.49 on Google Play, $6.99 on the App Store, as of September 2026 — with no subscription, no advertising and no in-app purchases; and it has five million installs against Telegram's billion, with a 3.8 Play rating that is mostly about not finding anyone to talk to. Our privacy mark is 9.5, the highest of any messenger we have reviewed, and our ease-of-use mark is 7.0, because verification and ID exchange add friction the mainstream removed years ago.
Neither app shows adverts.
What to do about it
If you use Telegram for what it is good at — large groups, channels, a searchable history on every device — keep using it, and reserve secret chats for the conversations that need them. Start one from the contact's profile, confirm the lock in the title bar, and remember it lives on that one device. Anything you would not want read by a company, in an ordinary chat, is in the wrong kind of chat.
If the requirement is that no company can read anything, Telegram is the wrong tool regardless of settings, and Threema is built for that requirement. Expect to pay once, to convince your contacts to do the same, and to manage your own backup.
Bottom line
Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default because its cloud features cannot work if it were, and the company says so in its own FAQ: cloud chats are protected by distributed servers and split keys, secret chats by encryption. Threema is end-to-end everywhere because it sells nothing else. Use Telegram knowing the lock icon is the only chat that is private, or use Threema knowing that privacy is the whole product — and that it costs a few dollars and a smaller address book.
