People you’ve already chatted with on Telegram will remain in your chat list and Telegram contacts.
Steps to Unsync Phone Contacts:
Disable Contact Syncing:
Go to Settings.
Tap on “Privacy and Security
Scroll down and tap on “Contacts” (on some Android versions) or “Data Settings” (often on iOS).
Find the “Sync Contacts” toggle and set it to OFF. This stops Telegram from uploading any new or updated contacts from your phone.
Delete Previously Synced Contacts from Servers:
Immediately below the “Sync Contacts” toggle (or within the same “Contacts” / “Data Settings” section), you will find an option called “Delete Synced Contacts.”
Tap this option and confirm
This action will remove the copy of your phone’s address book that Telegram has stored on its servers.
Important: If you only perform step 1 and don’t do step 2, Telegram will stop syncing new contacts, but any contacts already uploaded from previous syncs will remain on their servers until you explicitly delete them. If you perform step 2 without performing step 1, Telegram will likely re-upload your current contacts shortly after you delete them. So, do both steps in this order for complete unsyncing.
2. Unsyncing Your Telegram Account from an Old Phone Number (Changing Your Number)
This is about changing the primary phone number associated with your Telegram account, effectively unlinking your old number from your account and linking a new one.