I’ll get into more details below, so keep reading if you want o learn more about this!

Summary: In this article, I discuss the difficulty of recovering an old Telegram account without the phone number associated with it. 

Unfortunately, if you don’t remember the phone number and don’t have a device where the Telegram account is still connected, there’s not much you can do. 

You could potentially recover the account via email if you associated it with an email address, but this is not a popular option. 

The best way to avoid losing access to your Telegram account is to change your phone number in the app beforehand if you know you’ll be getting a new phone number or if your old one is expected to expire.

Recover Your Telegram Account Via Email

You can recover your Telegram account if you have associated it with an email address. If so, you can request a password change via email.

The problem is that this isn’t a very popular option for most. It’s likely that your Telegram account has no associated email address.

…I mean, it’s mostly used as a privacy-enhancing messaging platform, after all (but for some reason I always found it weird they need your phone number… hmm).

If that’s the case and you also don’t have your old phone number anymore, then unfortunately there isn’t much you can do.

Most of the time Telegram will be tied to your phone number, and if you lose that number, then you’ll also lose access to your Telegram account.

…which again, I find super awkward and peculiar, as it’s supposed to be a privacy app, but oh well…

The phone number is needed to verify whenever you want to access Telegram from a new device. In these cases, you will receive an SMS with a verification code.

Contacting Telegram will also not help in any way, as they can’t know that you’re the owner of the account without verifying your phone number.

You may contact the Russian FSB, though, there is a chance they can help you access your lost account 😀 – just joking of course (…or am I?).

You Can Change the Phone Number Linked to Your Telegram Account

The best way to avoid losing access to your Telegram account is to change your phone number in the app beforehand, in case you know you will get a new phone number or if your old one is expected to expire.

To do this, go to “Settings” – “Account” – “Change Phone Number” on your Telegram phone app and change your phone number.

After you do this, Telegram will send a verification SMS to your old number. You will need to confirm this, and the number associated with your account will change to the new number.

But again… as I said, if you don’t have access to your old number, then unfortunately there is not much you can do. I’m sorry…

So, there is REALLY not that much you can do?

In short, you can’t recover an old Telegram account without the phone number you registered it with, and without access to the Telegram account.

That’s just how it is… unfortunately.

But if you have access to your Telegram account, you can still change the old number to a new one.

That’s all I can say about this subject. Not much, I know, but I hope it still helps.