How to Install the Telegram Desktop App in Linux

Telegram is a hugely popular messaging client, especially for those interested in privacy. It’s easy to use and widely available for all platforms – Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS all have access to this platform, making it ideal for diverse teams of people. There are a few ways to get Telegram installed on your Linux desktop, so here we take a look at how to install the Telegram Desktop app in Linux.

How to Install the Telegram Desktop App in Ubuntu

Ubuntu users have the easiest time getting access to the Telegram Desktop app without doing anything differently. Just go to the Software Center and search for Telegram in the search bar. Click on the Telegram Desktop choice that comes up and click Install.

You can also install from the terminal by entering the following command:

sudo apt install telegram-desktop

That’ll grab the latest version from the repositories and install it on your system.

How to Install the Telegram Desktop App in any Linux Distro

There is also a distro-agnostic tarball available from Telegram’s official downloads page. Download it, then extract it, move the binary to the “/opt” directory, and link it to the “/bin” directory with the following:

cd ~/Downloads
tar -xJvf tsetup.0.7.2.tar
sudo mv Telegram /opt/telegram
sudo ln -sf /opt/telegram/Telegram /usr/bin/telegram

This presumes that you downloaded it to your “~/Downloads” folder. Change the folder to whichever you downloaded it to.