Apple’s Telegram App Store removal briefly blocked new iPhone and iPad users from downloading the messaging app on Monday night. Apple restored Telegram after the company removed the flagged material and banned the user who posted it, according to Apple’s statement to 9to5Mac.
Apple said its review found content that violated its rules prohibiting child sexual abuse material, commonly abbreviated as CSAM. The company did not say that Telegram created the material or that the platform knowingly distributed it. Its stated finding concerned content available through the app.
For people who already had Telegram installed, the interruption did not cut off access. Forbes and MacRumors reported that existing users could keep using the service while its iPhone and iPad App Store listing was unavailable. 9to5Mac reported that Telegram remained available through the Mac App Store and appeared to remain listed on Google Play.
Why did Apple remove Telegram from the App Store?
Apple said it pulled Telegram because its review identified content that breached the company’s CSAM policy. The app returned once Telegram had taken down that content and barred the account responsible, Apple said. In practical terms, Apple’s action temporarily stopped new downloads through its iOS and iPadOS storefronts without disabling copies already on users’ devices.
MacRumors reported that App Store searches stopped finding Telegram at about 9:30 p.m. ET, while its direct listing returned a page-not-found message. The listing returned at roughly 10:10 p.m. ET, placing the interruption at around 40 minutes. Apple’s statement was published after the app had returned, according to 9to5Mac.
Telegram later said Apple had reported a single user sharing CSAM and that the account was immediately banned. That is Telegram’s account of the event. The company also said it had removed more than 337,900 CSAM-related groups and channels in 2026, a company-provided figure that the reports did not independently verify.
CSAM is the preferred term for visual depictions of sexually explicit conduct involving someone under 18, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The department says the wording better describes the abuse and trauma involved than the older statutory term.
This was not Apple’s first temporary removal of Telegram. Apple also took Telegram and its Telegram X client out of the App Store in February 2018 over content then described as inappropriate, MacRumors and 9to5Mac reported. Telegram founder Pavel Durov said at the time that Apple had alerted the company and that Telegram added protections before the apps returned.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
