AyuGram is an open-source Telegram Desktop fork for macOS that extends the familiar messaging experience with privacy controls the official client has never shipped — most notably the ability to read messages invisibly and to preserve a local copy of content that other users delete.
What is AyuGram?
AyuGram is a community-maintained Telegram client built on top of the official Telegram Desktop codebase. It inherits every feature of the app you already know — the keyboard shortcuts, the notification sounds, the full channel experience — and layers on a focused set of privacy tools that Telegram itself has chosen not to offer. The project lives on GitHub, ships as a native Mac application, and connects to your existing Telegram account without any migration or separate sign-up.
What does AyuGram do best?
Ghost mode is the centrepiece. When you toggle it on, incoming messages are read locally without triggering the blue double-tick on the sender's screen. No last-seen timestamp leaks, no typing indicators, no online-status broadcast — every breadcrumb of your presence on Telegram's servers is quietly suppressed. I've been running this during client negotiations and the difference is real: you absorb a message, think, and respond on your own terms rather than under the social pressure of a "seen at 9:47 AM" receipt hanging over the exchange.
The deleted-message archive is the second headline capability. Telegram has always let senders erase messages for everyone with no trace. AyuGram intercepts and stores those messages in a local cache before the deletion propagates, giving you a private record of exactly what was said. Whether that's a vendor quietly retracting a written commitment or a group-chat post that reframes everything that followed, the text is yours to keep.
- Ghost mode — suppresses read receipts, last-seen, and online status in a single toggle
- Deleted-message archive — captures erased and edited messages before they disappear server-side
- Local folder — organises saved media without syncing it to Telegram's cloud
- Interface refinements — adjustable bubble style, sender-name formatting, and cosmetic customisation absent from the stock client
Is AyuGram free?
Yes — completely free, with no subscription, no premium tier, and no in-app purchase anywhere in sight. Because the source code is publicly auditable on GitHub, its behaviour is not a black box: anyone with the inclination can verify exactly what the app does before installing it. There is no monetisation layer between you and the download.
Who should use AyuGram?
Power users who conduct meaningful work over Telegram will get the most out of it. Freelancers managing client relationships, journalists communicating with sources, and researchers monitoring fast-moving channels where admins sometimes scrub posts will find the deletion archive alone worth the switch. Ghost mode appeals to anyone who has felt the quiet social coercion of Telegram's read receipts and wanted an exit ramp.
If you use Telegram purely for casual conversation and read receipts are a non-issue, the official Telegram Desktop app is the simpler and safer choice — it is updated first and does not require trusting a third-party build. AyuGram is for the user who has bumped against a specific limitation and decided to go looking for a real solution rather than a workaround.
How does AyuGram compare to Telegram Desktop?
Telegram Desktop is the baseline: fast, native, and updated the moment Telegram ships anything new. AyuGram sits on top of that baseline and adds what Telegram deliberately withholds. The honest trade-off is update cadence — AyuGram's maintainers must rebase their patches after each Telegram Desktop release, which can mean a lag of a day or two around major updates. In daily use I have never encountered a gap that actually mattered.
Nicegram is the other privacy-oriented Telegram client Mac users sometimes encounter, but it is primarily an iOS product with a different feature focus and no comparable macOS desktop presence. There is no direct competitor on Mac that matches AyuGram's specific pairing of presence suppression and deletion history. You are either using the official client or you are here.
