Telegram Chat Folders: How to Create, Share and Use Them as a Team
· 4 min
Telegram chat folders explained: how to create and share them, current limits for free and Premium accounts, folder links, and how teams use folders.
To create a Telegram chat folder, open Settings → Chat Folders → Create New Folder, give it a name, add chats (individually or by type, such as all groups or all non-contacts), and save — it appears as a tab above your chat list. A free account can have up to 10 folders with up to 100 chats each; Telegram Premium raises that to 30 folders with up to 200 chats each. Folders can also be shared with a link that lets others join all of the folder's groups and channels in one tap.
How to create a folder, step by step
- Open Settings → Chat Folders (the same path in every official app — phone, desktop and web).
- Tap Create New Folder and enter a name. You can also pick an icon.
- Under Included chats, add specific chats or whole chat types: Contacts, Non-Contacts, Groups, Channels, Bots.
- Under Excluded chats, remove what you don't want: specific chats, or Muted, Read and Archived chats.
- Save. The folder becomes a tab; drag folders in Settings to change their order.
A chat can sit in more than one folder, and adding a chat to a folder doesn't move it out of All Chats.
Current folder limits (free vs Premium)
Telegram documents these limits as client configuration values in its API docs. They are server-controlled, so Telegram can change them; the app always shows the limit that applies to you.
| Limit | Free | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Chat folders | 10 | 30 |
| Chats per folder | 100 | 200 |
| Shareable folders you can have | 2 | 20 |
| Invite links per shareable folder | 3 | 100 |
The official shareable folders tour confirms the shareable numbers: all users can add 2 shareable folders with up to 100 chats each, Premium subscribers 20 with up to 200 chats each.
Shareable folders and folder links
Since 2023 you can share a folder as a link (Telegram announced it in Shareable Chat Folders). Whoever opens the link adds the folder and joins its chats in one tap. How it works:
- Long-press the folder tab and choose Share, or open it in Settings → Chat Folders. Telegram creates an invite link and you choose which chats the link includes. A QR code is available too.
- You can include public groups and channels, and chats where you have admin rights to add people.
- Folders that use chat-type rules (Groups, Channels, Unread and similar) can't be shared — build the folder from specific chats instead.
- Each link can expose a different set of chats, so one folder can serve several audiences.
- New chats added to the folder are not shared automatically. Update the existing link with the new chats, and everyone who used it gets a suggestion to join them.
Typical business uses: a "Partners" folder with your channel and partner groups, an onboarding folder with all the community and support chats a new customer should join, or an internal folder of team groups for new hires.
How teams use folders
Folders are personal: they belong to one Telegram account and only that account's user sees them. That's fine for one person, but a team with several numbers runs into gaps:
- Every number has its own folders; nobody has a single view across numbers.
- If three people share one login, one person's folder changes affect everyone.
- The 100/200 chat cap makes folders a poor fit for "all customers" on a busy number.
A practical split that works well:
| Use Telegram folders for | Use a shared inbox for |
|---|---|
| Grouping communities, channels and partner groups per number | Customer conversations across all numbers |
| Quick tabs on the phone | Assignee, pipeline stage and labels per chat |
| Shareable onboarding links | Notes, reminders and tickets the whole team sees |
Folder sync in Telegramte
Telegramte syncs Telegram chat folders both ways for every connected number:
- Pick a number in the inbox and its Telegram folders appear as tabs.
- Create or edit a folder in the panel — name, icon, included and excluded chats, chat-type rules — and it's saved to Telegram, so it shows up on the phone too.
- Changes made on the phone come back to the panel on sync.
- When you delete a folder, the panel asks whether to delete it from Telegram as well. Chats are never deleted with a folder.
On top of folders, the shared inbox adds what Telegram doesn't have: one list across all numbers, an assignee per chat, labels, pipeline stages and per-member permissions, so an agent can work from folders on the numbers they're allowed to see.
Related: Manage multiple Telegram accounts as a team · Telegram shared inbox · Schedule Telegram posts