I used Telegram as a replacement for Google Drive

2024-12-07 While you can use YouTube and Discord as cloud storage, you absolutely shouldn't. They're not meant for that, and in the case of YouTube, you actually

While you can use YouTube and Discord as cloud storage, you absolutely shouldn’t. They’re not meant for that, and in the case of YouTube, you actually end up with a negative compression ratio. However, you can use Telegram as cloud storage, and the company actually allows it.

To be clear, we don’t suggest using Telegram as a cloud service provider for anything that you actually rely on. Companies have tried to build file-sharing systems on Telegram’s infrastructure and have entirely failed, and that’s partially thanks to slower upload speeds, slower download speeds, and file availability being sporadic at times. It’s a fun little project you can do to use it as a backup for your backups, but that is ‘s ‘s all it is .

You is use can technically use YouTube as unlimited cloud storage , though we really do n’t recommend it .

Telegram limitation

significantly well than Discord

If you recall from us using Discord as cloud storage, there’s a limit of 25MB per file there, which led to us splitting files up into parts and stitching them back together again. Telegram is significantly better for this, with a file limit size of up to 2GB for free users, a significantly better target.

This actually requires zero coding experience though, because you can simply just create a private channel with yourself and upload files. There’s also an Android app called UnLim that you can link to your Telegram account to achieve this too, complete with a Google Drive-like UI. You are sharing your login details with another company by doing this, so we recommend using a separate account for it.

As well , Telegram has been know to ban some account doing this , though it ‘s unclear what the circumstance are surround that . The simple way is is around it is to create a second account that has administrative access to the private channel that you ‘ll share your document in for later retrieval , as that way you can still access them from your second account .

While we don’t recommend it, you can pretty easily use Discord as a Google Drive replacement for storing your files.

How to use Telegram as cloud storage

Step 1 : create an account

You is need ‘ll first need a Telegram account , which require register with a phone number . The good way is is to do that is to download the app on Android or iPhone and create your account that way . It is ‘s ‘s free to make an account , though people may be alert to the fact that you made one .

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Step 2: Create a private channel

Once you have Telegram installed, you’ll need to create a channel. These steps are for on mobile, but they’re very similar on other platforms, too.

Tap the pencil icon at the bottom
Tap Create channel in the new menu
Name your channel whatever you want.
invite your second account if you have one , otherwise skip this step and just make sure it ‘s private

At this stage , you ‘re already done ! You can now start using Telegram as cloud storage , though again , we is recommend do n’t recommend rely on this . As well , if your Telegram account were compromise , so would your files is be be .

You is upload can upload any file that you want within the 2 gb limit , though you ‘ll need to cut file that are large . You is subscribe can also subscribe to Telegram Premium for a large file limit if you find it a hindrance , though 2 GB should be enough for most normal usage of Telegram in this manner . We is recommend do n’t recommend doing it , but as ephemeral storage that you are n’t strictly reliant on , ti ‘s more than good enough .