You open Telegram on your iPhone, and at the top of the chat list, where the title usually sits, "Connecting..." keeps spinning. Yesterday everything worked (maybe you were still at home, maybe you've just landed somewhere new), and today your chats are frozen on old messages. You've already restarted the phone and switched from Wi-Fi to mobile data and back, and search results offer you either programs that promise to fix all of iOS at once or the advice to delete Telegram and install it again. I'd start with the thing almost nobody looks at - the line at the top itself.

What the line above your chat list means

I checked these statuses against the code of Telegram for iPhone, so here I can speak with confidence. I quote them as they appear in the English interface. Telegram shows "Waiting for Network" (on iPhone without the dots) when the iPhone's own system tells it there's no network. In that case Telegram is just passing on what the phone told it, so you should start with the iPhone's own connection: Wi-Fi, cellular and the settings I go through below.

"Connecting..." means something else. The iPhone does have a network, but Telegram can't reach its servers. And here is a detail people usually don't mention. If a proxy is turned on in Telegram and it isn't responding, the iPhone shows exactly the same "Connecting...", because the current version has no separate status for the proxy (it's still in the code, but commented out). So from that one word at the top you can't tell a problem with your provider from a dead proxy that someone added long ago and forgot about.

Telegram does give you a hint, but only once. When an enabled proxy can't connect, a tooltip pops up next to the proxy button at the top, "The proxy may be unavailable. Try selecting another one.", and then it disappears by itself or when you tap somewhere else.

As for "Updating...", it shouldn't worry you: the connection is already there, and Telegram is loading what's new.

Do you have a proxy in Telegram?

You can add a proxy to Telegram from someone's link in a second and forget about it just as fast. A free shared link from a list could easily have died since then, and Telegram will stubbornly keep knocking through it.

The quickest way to check is this: open "Settings" in Telegram. If at least one proxy is saved in Telegram, you'll find a "Proxy" item there, and on its right it shows the type of the enabled proxy ("MTProto", "SOCKS5" or "WEB") or "Disabled". If there's no such item, good: Telegram has no saved proxies, and you can skip the rest of this section.

There's a second way too, through "Settings" → "Data and Storage". At the very bottom of that screen you'll see the "CONNECTION TYPE" section with a "Proxy" item, and when the proxy is off it says "None". The shield above your chat list proves nothing by itself, because Telegram shows it whenever any proxy is saved, even a disabled one.

To take the proxy out of the equation while you test, go to "Proxy" and turn off the "Use Proxy" switch. Telegram will then connect directly, and the proxy stays in the list, so you can turn it back on later. And if "Connecting..." then changes to "Updating...", the proxy was most likely the culprit. How to connect a proxy on iPhone again, I went through in a separate article. If the proxy is fresh and still won't connect, that's another story.

What the iPhone itself may have limited

You probably know about restarting and trying another network already, and if not, they're in the general article on why Telegram isn't working. Here I'll only go through what's in the iPhone itself. I took the item names from Apple's help in English, and it already covers iOS 26 and 27, so on an older iOS a few things may be named a little differently.

  1. Cellular data for Telegram. If Telegram works on Wi-Fi but not on mobile data, open "Settings" → "Cellular" (on some iPhones it's "Mobile Data") and scroll down to the list of apps. When cellular data is off for an app, the iPhone lets it online only over Wi-Fi, so the switch next to Telegram should be on.
  2. Low Data Mode and Low Power Mode. You turn Low Data Mode on separately for cellular (in "Cellular", under "Cellular Data Options") and for each Wi-Fi network (the Info button next to the network). According to Apple's help, in this mode apps stop using network data when you're not actively using them, and Background App Refresh is turned off. Low Power Mode in "Settings" → "Battery" (on iPhone 15 and later, through "Power Mode") also reduces or disables Background App Refresh, and it can turn on by itself when the battery runs low. But Apple writes all of this about the background, so if Telegram stays silent while it's in the background and comes alive when you open it, also take a look at "General" → "Background App Refresh".
  3. A forgotten VPN profile. You can see installed profiles in "Settings" → "General" → "VPN & Device Management". If there's a profile you installed once and haven't used for ages, you can select it and tap "Remove Profile". Apple warns that all the settings, apps and data associated with the profile are deleted along with it. Don't touch a work or school profile without asking your administrator.
  4. Updating Telegram. Check the App Store for an update to Telegram Messenger. That's simpler and safer than reinstalling.
  5. Leave Reset Network Settings for last. I'd only use it if the whole network on the iPhone is acting up, not just Telegram. The path is "Settings" → "General" → "Transfer or Reset iPhone" → "Reset" → "Reset Network Settings". Apple's help lists what gets removed, including the networks you've used before (you'll have to enter the Wi-Fi passwords again) and VPN settings that weren't installed by a profile, and the device name goes back to "iPhone". Your content stays where it is. But the same menu also has "Erase All Content and Settings", and you really mustn't mix the two up, because that one removes all your content.

When it's not your iPhone

Sometimes "Connecting..." hangs at the top, the proxy is off, the settings above are fine, other apps on the same iPhone open without trouble, and friends on the same carrier see Telegram behave the same way. Then it's not your phone, and there's little point digging further into settings.

In some countries access to Telegram is restricted, and if you've just arrived in one of them, that's the first thing to keep in mind.

Why you shouldn't log out or delete Telegram

When nothing helps, your hand reaches for logging out or deleting Telegram and installing it again, and search results advise exactly that without a single word about secret chats. I'm against it. Telegram's help says plainly that most users don't need to log out. Secret chats are tied to the device and to your current login: if you log out, they're gone, even if you log straight back in. Your regular cloud chats stay. Telegram on iPhone warns you about this itself, too: when you log out, the confirmation tells you that your secret chats will be lost.

Getting back in isn't that simple either. The code may arrive not by SMS but in the "Telegram" chat on another device where you're already logged in, and if Telegram on your iPhone can't connect, logging back in could be tricky, I assume. Never share that code with anyone. What to do if it doesn't arrive, I covered in the article about the login code.

Deleting is the same story. According to Apple's help, deleting an app removes both the app and its data, which means that on this iPhone you lose your login and your secret chats (that conclusion is mine, drawn from Apple's and Telegram's help). If Telegram only bothers you by taking up space, you can offload it in "Settings" → "General" → "iPhone Storage": according to Apple, that frees up the space but keeps the app's documents and data, and the icon stays on your Home Screen, just with a little cloud. Whether secret chats survive that, I won't vouch for. By the way, Telegram clears its cache without logging out too, through "Settings" → "Data and Storage" → "Storage Usage" → "Clear Cache", and your media stays in the cloud.

And finally, about us. Let me say right away that I'm an interested party here: FreeGate is our personal MTProto proxy for Telegram, and we sell it, so keep that in mind 🙂 If the proxy you use is ours and your iPhone says "Connecting...", first check whether your subscription has ended. When it ends, the link stops connecting, and Telegram keeps trying to connect through it. Then renew the plan in your account or turn off "Use Proxy" in Telegram's settings. Auto-renewal is off by default, so unless you've turned it on yourself, nothing is charged automatically.

Our proxy works only inside Telegram, while your browser and other apps go online directly, as usual. Each device has its own link, and if it leaks, you can change it in your account with one tap, and the old one stops working at once. We can't see your messages, because Telegram encrypts them itself and the proxy only passes the encrypted data along. You don't need a separate app either: just tap "Connect in Telegram", and when Telegram asks about the proxy, choose "Connect Proxy".

You can try it free for 1 day after you sign up with an email and confirm your address, with no payment, and nothing is charged automatically after the trial. After that it's $1.00 for 30 days or $2.50 for 90 days, and the price is per device, so if you need it on both an iPhone and an iPad, you pay for two devices. It's all at freegate.app/world.