Short answer. A Telegram folder is a tab in your chat list that holds chosen chats, created under Settings > Chat Folders. A shareable folder turns that tab into a t.me/addlist/ link: whoever opens it can join every group and channel inside with one tap. Free accounts can join 2 shared folders of up to 100 chats; Premium raises that to 20 folders of up to 200 chats.
Telegram folders started as a way to tidy a crowded chat list and have since become one of the few native tools for handing someone a whole set of channels at once. This guide covers both halves: how to build and manage folders for your own use, and how a telegram folder link works when you share it to promote a channel or onboard a team.
Every limit below was read from Telegram's own pages on 22 October 2026: the Shareable Chat Folders tour, the developer page on dialog folders and the live client configuration. Where those pages disagree with each other, the guide shows both numbers rather than picking the friendlier one.
What Telegram folders are and what they change
Telegram folders are saved filters on your chat list. Each folder appears as a tab, holds the chats you pick or the chat types you include, and leaves every other chat untouched. A chat can sit in several folders at once. Telegram folders change only how your list is displayed: nobody in a chat is notified that you filed it, and moving a chat between folders sends nothing.
Telegram introduced chat folders in its March 2020 update "Chat Folders, Archive, Channel Stats and More", written for people whose lists had filled up with work and study chats. The launch post describes the idea plainly: "separate fun from work, or family stuff from school stuff – then swipe between the tabs." Folders in Telegram sync across every app signed in to the account, except Secret Chats, which stay on one device.
A folder can be defined in two ways, and the difference matters later when you want to share it. The first is by chat type: contacts, non-contacts, groups, channels or bots, with the option to exclude muted, read or archived chats. The second is by hand-picking individual chats. Telegram's developer page on dialog folders calls the two mechanisms whitelists and blacklists, stored as include_peers and exclude_peers.
Folders telegram users rely on most are simple ones: Work, News, Family, Unread. Folders do not hide chats from the main list the way the archive does. Telegram's 2020 post draws the line itself: "Chat Folders work best to make some of your chats more visible. If you're looking to hide some of your chats from view, try archiving them instead."
| Telegram folder | Archive |
|---|---|
| Adds a tab that shows a filtered view | Removes chats from the main list |
| A chat can sit in many folders | A chat is either archived or not |
| Chats stay where they are when a message arrives | Unmuted archived chats pop back out on a new message |
| Can be shared as a link if hand-picked | Cannot be shared |
How to create a folder in Telegram
How to create a folder in Telegram: open Settings > Chat Folders, choose Create New Folder, name it, add chats or chat types, and save. The folder appears as a tab above your chat list straight away. Telegram's tour gives the path in one line: "go to Settings > Chat Folders on any Telegram app. Pick the chats you'd like included, and give it a name."
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Open Chat Folders
Go to Settings > Chat Folders. On mobile, a long press on any existing folder tab also offers an edit shortcut. Telegram may show suggested folders here, such as Unread or Personal, which you can add with one tap.
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Name the folder
Pick a short name, since the name is what appears on the tab. Telegram also lets you choose an emoji icon, which the desktop app shows in its folder sidebar.
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Add chats or chat types
Choose Add Chats. You can tick types such as Groups or Channels, pick individual chats, or both. If you plan to share the folder later, pick chats individually and leave the type boxes empty.
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Exclude what you do not want
Optionally exclude muted, read or archived chats, or named chats. A folder built from Groups with Exclude Read becomes a live list of group chats with unread messages.
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Save and reorder
Save, then drag folders in Settings > Chat Folders to change the tab order. The folder now appears in every Telegram app on the account.
That is the whole of how to make folder in telegram for personal use, and each telegram folder you build this way stays private until you share it. A folder needs at least one included chat or chat type: the API rejects an empty one with FILTER_INCLUDE_EMPTY, and a folder without a title with FILTER_TITLE_EMPTY. To delete a folder, open it in Settings > Chat Folders and choose Delete; the chats inside stay in your list.
Each folder also has its own pinned chats. The 2020 launch post promised "as many pinned chats as you like"; today's client configuration sets dialogs_folder_pinned_limit_default at 100 per folder, so the practical cap is high but no longer unlimited.
Telegram folders on Android, iPhone and desktop
Telegram folders behave the same on every app because they are stored on Telegram's servers, but the controls differ. On phones the folders show as swipeable tabs above the chat list. On Telegram Desktop and the macOS app they can show as a sidebar with icons. A folder made on one device appears on all others without any export step.
Telegram folders android users set up work through the same Settings > Chat Folders screen, with two Android-specific details Telegram documented at launch. Swipe-to-archive does not work while folders are in use, because a sideways swipe moves between folder tabs. Instead, Telegram's 2020 post says, "you can long press on a chat to open the bulk actions menu where you can select multiple chats and then pin, mute, archive or delete them all at once."
Folders on Telegram desktop apps get the most room. The launch post notes that "Thanks to the extra space available on your computer screen, we've added a folder sidebar" with icons to make folders recognisable. On iPhone and Android, long-pressing a folder tab opens a menu to edit, reorder, mark all chats as read or share the folder.
Can you remove the All Chats folder?
No Telegram page describes a way to delete All Chats, and the developer documentation treats it as a fixed default folder. What Premium subscribers can do is move it: the app then opens on another folder first. Free accounts keep All Chats as the first tab. Deleting every custom folder removes the tab strip, which is the closest a free account gets.
Searches for telegram remove all chats folder usually come from people who want the app to open on Work or Unread. Telegram announced that option with Premium in June 2022: subscribers can change "your default chat folder so the app always opens on a custom folder or, say, Unread instead of All Chats." The instruction it gives is to "press and hold a folder in your chat list > Reorder > and drag your preferred folder to the first space."
The developer page confirms the restriction from the other side. It says Premium users "have access to a dialogFilterDefault constructor, used only when reordering folders to indicate the default (all chats) folder." There is no delete operation for that constructor. All Chats can be hidden from the first position, never removed.
What is a shareable folder in Telegram?
A shareable folder in Telegram is a folder with an invite link attached. Anyone who opens the link sees a preview of the chats inside, and one tap adds the folder to their list and joins them to every group and channel it shares. Telegram launched the feature in April 2023. Only hand-picked folders qualify: folders defined by chat types cannot be shared.
For anyone asking what is shareable folder in telegram, the official tour gives the intended uses: the feature is meant for company onboarding and for letting "journalists and experts to rapidly share lists of curated news sources and communities." The April 2023 announcement described it in practical terms: "With one tap, they will add the folder and instantly join all its chats."
A telegram shareable folder carries only groups and channels. Telegram's tour says "Individual users and bots can't be shared together with the folder, but users can add them manually later." Chats you cannot share, and chats you choose to leave out, stay in your own copy of the folder. The person who adds it gets a separate copy they can rename, extend or trim.
"Sharing a folder with someone allows them to directly join all its chats – even ones that normally need Join Requests (for this reason, only admins can add public chats with join requests to shareable folders)."Telegram, Shareable Chat Folders tour, telegram.org/tour/chat-folders
That sentence explains the admin rule. You can add any public group or channel to a shared folder, even one you do not run, and any private chat where you hold the admin right to invite users. A public chat that screens members through join requests can be shared only by its admins, because the folder link skips the request step.
The telegram addlist link, step by step
A telegram addlist link is the address Telegram generates when you share a folder. It takes the form t.me/addlist/ followed by a random slug, and inside apps the same link can travel as tg://addlist?slug=. Each folder can carry several addlist links, and each link can share a different subset of the folder's chats.
To share folder telegram users already have in their list, the tour lists two entry points: "long press the folder name in your chat list and select 'Share' – or open the folder in Settings > Chat Folders." Either path creates a new invite link.
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Build a hand-picked folder
Remove any chat-type filters. Telegram's tour is explicit: "If you want to share your folder with others, do not include or exclude 'Chat Types' like 'Groups', 'Channels' or 'Unread'."
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Create the link
Long-press the folder tab and choose Share, or open the folder in settings and choose to create an invite link.
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Pick the chats the link shares
Telegram lists the folder's groups and channels; tick those this link should open. Chats you cannot share are greyed out.
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Name the link or make a QR code
Use the link's menu to give it a name, such as Interns or Managers, or to generate a QR code. Link names are private to you.
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Copy and send
Copy the link or share it straight into a chat. The recipient sees the folder's name and chat list before accepting.
Behind the screen, the app calls chatlists.exportChatlistInvite. Its documentation adds a detail the tour leaves out: "Basic groups will automatically be converted to supergroups when invoking the method." Sharing a small private group through a folder upgrades it. The same method returns CHAT_ADMIN_REQUIRED for a private chat where you lack the invite right.
When someone opens an addlist telegram link, the app first checks it with chatlists.checkChatlistInvite and shows a preview. After acceptance, chatlists.joinChatlistInvite joins the chosen chats. The developer page states one hard failure case: "If the user can't join any of the peers of a folder, the folder can't be imported", for example when the person was banned from every chat in it.
| Error | Telegram's description | What to do |
|---|---|---|
INVITE_SLUG_EXPIRED | "The specified chat folder link has expired." | Ask the sender for a fresh link; the old one was deleted. |
CHANNELS_TOO_MUCH | "You have joined too many channels/supergroups." | Leave unused channels, then open the link again. |
CHATLISTS_TOO_MUCH | Too many folder links, against the configured limit | Remove a shared folder or a link, or upgrade to Premium. |
INVITES_TOO_MUCH | Per-folder invite limit reached | Delete an unused link for that folder. |
CHAT_ADMIN_REQUIRED | "You must be an admin in this chat to do this." | Drop the private chat from the link, or get the invite right. |
The phrase telegram addlist turns up in searches mostly from people who received such a link and want to know what it does before tapping. The preview answers that: it lists every chat the link will join, and the recipient can untick chats before accepting. Removing the folder later offers to leave all its chats in one tap, so the action is easy to undo. Telegram's tour describes it this way: "If they later remove the folder, they can also leave all its chats in one tap."
Telegram folder limits: free and Premium
Telegram folder limits come from the client configuration, which Telegram's apps read from the server. On 22 October 2026 it allowed 10 folders per free account and 30 with Premium, 100 chats per folder or 200 with Premium, 2 joined shareable folders or 20 with Premium, and 3 invite links per folder or 100 with Premium.
dialog_filters_limit_default and _premium in Telegram's client configuration.
dialog_filters_chats_limit_default and _premium.
chatlists_joined_limit_default and _premium.
chatlist_invites_limit_default and _premium.
| Limit | Free | Premium | Where Telegram states it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Folders per account | 10 | 30 | Client configuration; the June 2022 Premium post said 20 |
| Chats per folder | 100 | 200 | Client configuration and the tour |
| Shareable folders you can add | 2 | 20 | Client configuration and the tour |
| Invite links per folder | 3 | 100 | Client configuration; the tour cites only the 100 |
| Pinned chats per folder | 100 | — | Client configuration, default key |
| Check for folder updates | At most once every 3,600 seconds | chatlist_update_period | |
Two of these numbers are easy to get wrong from secondary sources. The tour's section on access levels opens with "Folders can have up to 100 unique invite links", but the configuration gives free accounts 3; the 100 is the Premium figure, as the tour's own Premium section confirms. The 2022 Premium announcement said "up to 20 chat folders", and the live configuration now says 30.
For Telegram folders, the configuration is the more current source because the apps enforce whatever it returns. Telegram can change these values on the server without an app update, so a number that was right last year may not be right today. The limit that hits recipients most often is the joined-folder cap of 2: a free user who already added two shared folders must remove one before accepting a third.
Using a telegram channel folder to promote channels
A telegram channel folder shared by link works as a bundle: one post or button gives readers a set of related channels in a single tap. Channel admins use it to group their own network, to run cross-promotions with partner channels, or to publish a curated reading list. It helps when the audience already follows you and wants the set.
The tour names the case directly: "someone whose News folder has channels in multiple languages might want to make separate English and Spanish links – or ones for World News and Local News." One folder can carry several links, so the same set can be sliced by language, region or topic without building separate folders.
For a channel network the practical pattern looks like this. Build one folder holding every channel you run. Create one telegram folder link per audience segment. Post the right link in each channel's pinned message or description, so readers who already chose you can add the rest. For more ways to reach readers who already opted in, see promotion methods Telegram itself allows.
Folder updates make the bundle durable. When you add a new channel and update an existing link, "Anyone who used that link will be prompted to join the new chats," per the tour. The developer page sets the polling interval: apps fetch additions no more than once every chatlist_update_period seconds, currently 3,600. A launch added to a shared folder therefore reaches existing holders as a prompt within about an hour, and nobody is joined without tapping.
Cross-promotion with partner channels needs no admin rights on their side when those channels are public, because any public channel can go into a shared folder. Asking first is still the right move: partners see their channel bundled next to yours, and a folder that pairs a respected channel with a weak one reflects on both. Measuring the result follows the methods in growing a channel's subscriber base; Telegram's channel statistics include a new-followers-by-source graph.
Telegram folders also suit businesses onboarding staff or customers. A company can share one folder with support, announcements and product channels, using a narrow link for customers and a wider one for employees. Telegram's tour gives the access-level example of a Manager link that shares every chat in a Work folder and an Intern link that opens only 2 or 3. The wider business toolkit is covered in Telegram's features for business accounts.
Telegram folders do not replace broadcast. A folder gets people into channels; it does not deliver messages to them. Reaching subscribers with timed posts belongs to the scheduler built into Telegram, and reaching opted-in users of a bot belongs to the routes in four broadcast routes and their published limits. Teams that run several of these together can use our channel growth service, which plans folder links alongside the rest of a launch.
Where folder promotion turns into spam
Telegram folder promotion turns into spam when the link goes to people who did not ask for it. Telegram's Spam FAQ covers unsolicited invite links in private messages, and adding people to chats they did not want. Bulk-sending addlist links to scraped usernames, trading folder slots for subscriber numbers, and padding folders with purchased channels are the three patterns that cross that line.
Telegram's Spam FAQ states that people "do mind getting unsolicited advertisements, links, invite links to groups or channels" and that "it really doesn't matter what you send, as long as the receivers find it unwelcome." An addlist link changes nothing about that test. Accounts that recipients report are limited, a state the site's guide to spam tools and how Telegram stops them explains in detail.
The first pattern pairs folder links with mass DM software. A list of usernames collected by a Telegram member scraper goes into a sender, and each username gets the folder link. Telegram's terms prohibit data scraping, and a bot cannot start the conversation at all: Telegram's developer introduction says "Bots can't start conversations with users." Doing it from user accounts is the route behind the restrictions covered in the supported ways to send bulk messages.
The second pattern is the folder-swap market: groups of admins who each add the others' channels to a shared folder and push the link to inflated audiences. Joins through a folder are real accounts, but a reader who added 40 channels in one tap rarely reads any of them. The subscriber count rises while views per post fall, the same shape described in what SMM panels sell and what Telegram says about it.
The third pattern is automated posting of folder links into other people's groups. Scripts that drop a link into dozens of groups are a variant of shill bots and the accounts they run on; group admins remove and report them, and Telegram's moderators act on group reports even though it says they "are more lenient when it comes to messages in groups".
A separate layer applies above Telegram's own rules. In the European Union, Article 13 of Directive 2002/58/EC requires prior consent for unsolicited direct marketing by electronic communications. A commercial folder link pushed to people who never opted in is a marketing message under that rule, whatever Telegram allows. Our consent-based broadcast service works only with audiences who chose to hear from a sender.
What Telegram does not publish about folders
Telegram does not publish how many times a telegram folder link can be opened, how long a link lasts before it expires, or any analytics on joins through a folder. It does not say whether heavy sharing of one addlist link draws review. The numbers it does publish are the account limits above, and those sit in the client configuration rather than a help page.
- Link lifetime. The API has an
INVITE_SLUG_EXPIREDerror, but the folder-sharing screens offer no expiry or usage settings like those on chat invite links. The documented way a link stops working is deletion throughchatlists.deleteExportedInvite. - Join attribution. Chat invite links show admins who joined through each link. No equivalent per-link join list is documented for folder links.
- Rate limits on joins. A folder with 100 channels joins a user to 100 chats at once. Telegram publishes no rule on how this interacts with the account's channel cap beyond the
CHANNELS_TOO_MUCHerror. - Folder tags. The developer page documents coloured folder tags under each chat preview, but the method that turns them on is marked "(Business users only)", and no help page explains who gets the feature.
Figures that circulate for these, such as a link limit per day or a safe number of folder shares, come from vendors and forums. None appears in Telegram's documentation as of 22 October 2026. For details on the chat invite links that folders build on, see invite link settings and states. Teams that want folder links handed out by a bot rather than by hand can use our bot development work, which sends links only to users who started the bot. The full list of what we offer is on the Sendhaus services page, and the Sendhaus home page explains how we work.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a folder in Telegram?
Open Settings > Chat Folders, choose Create New Folder, give it a name and add chats or chat types. Save, and the folder appears as a tab above your chat list on every device signed in to the account. Free accounts can hold 10 folders and Premium accounts 30.
What is a telegram addlist link?
It is the invite link for a shared chat folder, in the form t.me/addlist/ plus a random slug. Opening it shows a preview of the folder's groups and channels. Accepting adds the folder and joins the chosen chats in one tap.
Why can't I share my Telegram folder?
Folders defined by chat types, such as Groups, Channels or Unread, cannot be shared. Rebuild the folder by picking chats individually. Private chats where you lack the invite right, individual users and bots are also left out of the link.
Do people who added my folder see chats I add later?
Not automatically. New chats appear for others only if you update an existing invite link to include them. Everyone who used that link then gets a prompt to join the new chats, and nobody is added without tapping.
How many shared folders can I join on Telegram?
Free accounts can add 2 shareable folders and Premium accounts 20, according to both the tour and the client configuration. To add a third on a free account, remove one of the two you already have.
Can I delete the All Chats folder in Telegram?
No. Telegram describes no delete option for All Chats. Premium subscribers can move another folder to the first position so the app opens there instead. On a free account, All Chats stays first while any custom folder exists.
Is it allowed to send my folder link to people who do not follow me?
Telegram's Spam FAQ counts invite links to groups or channels in unwelcome private messages as spam, and accounts reported for it can be limited. Share folder links where your audience already is, such as your own channel's pinned post.
Sources
- Telegram, Shareable Chat Folders tour — creation path, sharing rules, access levels, updates and limits.
- Telegram blog, shareable chat folders (April 2023) — launch of folder links.
- Telegram blog, chat folders (March 2020) — launch, Android bulk actions, desktop sidebar, archive comparison.
- Telegram blog, Telegram Premium (June 2022) — default folder and Reorder instruction.
- Telegram API, dialog folders — folder constructors, shareable folders, update period and folder tags.
- Telegram API, client configuration — folder, chat, link and joined-folder limits.
- Telegram API, deep links —
t.me/addlist/andtg://addlistformats. - Telegram API, chatlists.exportChatlistInvite — supergroup conversion and link errors.
- Telegram API, chatlists.joinChatlistInvite — join errors.
- Telegram API, messages.updateDialogFilter — empty-folder and title errors.
- Telegram Spam FAQ — unsolicited invite links and group moderation.
- Telegram, Bots: an introduction for developers — "Bots can't start conversations with users."
- Directive 2002/58/EC, Article 13 — consent for unsolicited direct-marketing communications.
Planning a folder for a launch?
Send the channels you want to bundle, where the link will be posted and how the audience opted in. You get a written read on how to split the links, which limits apply, and where the plan would draw reports.