Telegram search by phone number stopped working on some accounts
Hi everyone,
I have a really strange issue with Telegram and I can’t figure out what caused it.
Before, I could search almost any phone number directly in Telegram and find the person.
And if Telegram search didn’t work, I could still open Safari/browser and type:
t me/number
and usually it would open the user profile or chat.
But around 6 months ago something changed.
Now on 2 of my Telegram accounts:
- I cannot find people by phone number in Telegram search
- t me/number links also don’t work
- Telegram says the user does not exist
- The only way to find someone is to first add them to my phone contacts
At the same time, on my other 2 Telegram accounts everything works perfectly with the exact same device and internet connection.
So it looks like the problem is account-specific, not device-specific.
Things I already checked:
- Latest Telegram version
- Same iPhone/device
- Same internet/VPN
- Privacy settings look identical between accounts
Has anyone experienced this before?
Could Telegram silently limit phone-number search on some accounts?
Maybe anti-spam restrictions or account trust score?
Would really appreciate any ideas or fixes.