Note: Running Multiple Telegram Desktop Instances on Linux

Notes on running multiple Telegram instances on Linux.

2020/07/28 update：
Telegram Desktop v2.2 supports multi-account switching now.

My first thought was to download multiple tg binaries and put them in different folders (that’s how I did it on Windows).

But that doesn’t work on Linux.

I searched online and found this: Github - Add multiple accounts in Telegram Desktop [Linux | MacOSX | Windows]
The idea is to use Telegram’s -workdir argument to specify where user data is stored.

Detailed steps:

• Telegram account data is stored under ~/.local/share/TelegramDesktop/ by default. Create a username folder there, e.g. ~/.local/share/TelegramDesktop/username/, to store data for that account.
• Create a .desktop launcher file and set the -workdir argument to point to the username folder above.
• The file location doesn’t really matter, but the guide suggests putting it under ~/.local/share/applications/.
• Launcher file content:

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[Desktop Entry]
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Version=1.0
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Name=Telegram MyUsername
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Comment=Official desktop application for the Telegram messaging service
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TryExec=/opt/Telegram/Telegram
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Exec=/opt/Telegram/Telegram -workdir /home/{{your_user}}/.local/share/TelegramDesktop/username -- %u
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Icon=telegram
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Terminal=false
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StartupWMClass=TelegramDesktop
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Type=Application
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Categories=Network;InstantMessaging;Qt;
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MimeType=x-scheme-handler/tg;
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Keywords=tg;chat;im;messaging;messenger;sms;tdesktop;
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X-GNOME-UsesNotifications=true
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X-Desktop-File-Install-Version=0.23

Run it and you should see the Telegram login screen.

Success
Then I found I couldn’t log in: after entering the account, it showed internal server error.
I looked around but didn’t really understand it.
I replaced the .desktop file’s TryExec / Exec with the downloaded Telegram binary, and it worked.

But the next day, changing it back also worked.
Might have been my network.

I looked at the original Telegram .desktop file:

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$ cat /usr/share/applications/telegramdesktop.desktop
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[Desktop Entry]
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Version=1.0
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Name=Telegram Desktop
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Comment=Official desktop version of Telegram messaging app
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TryExec=telegram-desktop
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Exec=telegram-desktop -- %u
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Icon=telegram
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Terminal=false
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StartupWMClass=TelegramDesktop
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Type=Application
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Categories=Chat;Network;InstantMessaging;Qt;
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MimeType=x-scheme-handler/tg;
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Keywords=tg;chat;im;messaging;messenger;sms;tdesktop;
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X-GNOME-UsesNotifications=true

Based on that, I tweaked the Comment field in my .desktop file.

Final result: