Free MTProto Proxy for Telegram (Updated 2026)

A free MTProto proxy for Telegram is a relay, built specifically for Telegram, that gets you back into the app when your network throttles or blocks it. You paste a proxy link or type in a server, a port and a secret, Telegram routes through it, and to whatever is doing the blocking your connection looks like ordinary encrypted noise.

That is the whole job. Most people searching for a free MTProto proxy Telegram link are in Iran, Russia, Pakistan or somewhere else where the app is filtered, and they need one thing: to open Telegram again. This guide explains what MTProto actually is, how to add a proxy in about thirty seconds, why the free ones keep dying, and what is safe to do through one. We run a proxy network, so we will explain the real machinery instead of selling you a list.

What is an MTProto proxy, and why does Telegram have its own kind?

MTProto is the name of Telegram's own encryption protocol, the one that wraps every message between your app and Telegram's servers. An MTProto proxy is a relay that speaks that protocol and nothing else. It exists because Telegram got blocked.

In 2018, when several governments tried to cut the app off, Telegram shipped a purpose-built proxy type that does two things a normal proxy does not. First, it only relays Telegram. You cannot browse the web through it or point another app at it. Second, and this is the important part, it can dress its traffic up to defeat the filtering that blocks the app in the first place. A censor's deep packet inspection (DPI) box looks at the shape of your traffic and tries to recognize "this is someone connecting to Telegram." A well-configured MTProto proxy makes that shape look like a plain visit to an ordinary HTTPS website, so the DPI box has nothing obvious to grab onto.

That is the trade. An MTProto proxy is worse than a general proxy at everything except the one thing it was built for, which is getting Telegram through a block that a normal proxy cannot.

Where free MTProto proxies come from

There is no official public directory. Free MTProto proxies come from three places:

• Telegram channels that broadcast fresh proxies. These are the main source. People run channels that post new server, port and secret combos every few hours as old ones die. You find them by searching "MTProto proxy" or "MTProxy" inside Telegram once you are already connected, or through a friend who is.
• Proxy bots. Some bots hand out a working proxy on demand and let operators register their own. The official one for running your proxy is @MTProxybot.
• Your own VPS. The most reliable free MTProto proxy is one nobody else knows about, which means one you run yourself. The official server is open source, and a cheap virtual server plus a fifteen-minute setup gives you a private proxy that no channel has burned. For a technical user in a censored country, this is genuinely the best option, because a secret you never shared cannot be overloaded or leaked to a censor.

One honest note up front: HProxy does not publish MTProto secrets. Our free proxy list is HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 across 100+ countries, re-checked every few minutes. Telegram accepts SOCKS5 directly, so that list is usable for the SOCKS5 route we cover below, but if you specifically want MTProto, you get those links from the Telegram channels and bots above.

How to add a free MTProto proxy to Telegram

Two ways. The link is faster, the manual entry is what you fall back on when someone gives you the raw details.

By link (the fast way). A proxy link looks like this:

tg://proxy?server=proxy.example.net&port=443&secret=ee367...cloudflare.com
https://t.me/proxy?server=proxy.example.net&port=443&secret=ee367...cloudflare.com

Tap it. Telegram opens and shows a sheet that says "Enable this proxy?" with the server details. Confirm, and you are connected. A small shield icon appears near the top of the app to show a proxy is active.

By hand. When you have a server, a port and a secret as plain text:

1. Open Settings, then Data and Storage, then Proxy Settings (on some versions it is just Proxy). On Telegram Desktop it is Settings, then Advanced, then Connection type, then Use custom proxy.
2. Tap Add Proxy and choose MTProto Proxy.
3. Enter the Server, the Port, and paste the Secret.
4. Save and toggle it on.

If it connects, you are done. If it sits on "connecting" for more than fifteen seconds, that proxy is probably dead or overloaded. Delete it and try the next one. You will do this a few times with free proxies, which is normal, not a mistake on your end.

The secret string, decoded

The secret is the piece people find confusing, so here is what it actually encodes. That long hex string is not random filler, it tells Telegram which disguise mode to use.

• A plain 32-character secret (16 bytes of hex) is the original mode. It works, but its traffic pattern is recognizable, so censors block it first.
• A secret starting with dd turns on a padded mode that adds random-length junk to each packet, which breaks the simplest DPI trick of measuring packet sizes.
• A secret starting with ee is Fake TLS, the strongest mode. After the ee and the 16-byte secret, the rest of the string is a website domain (like www.cloudflare.com) encoded in hex. The proxy then makes your connection imitate a real TLS handshake to that domain. To a censor's filter, you appear to be visiting an ordinary big-name HTTPS site, which is very hard to block without breaking the real site too.

You do not have to do anything with this. You paste the secret and Telegram reads the prefix. But now you know why an ee proxy survives a block that kills a plain one, and why the good channels only post Fake TLS these days.

MTProto proxy vs SOCKS5 for Telegram

Telegram supports both. If your network only slows Telegram down rather than fully blocking it, a plain SOCKS5 proxy is simpler and works. If the app is hard-blocked by DPI, MTProto with Fake TLS is the one that gets through. Here is the honest side-by-side:

The short version: reach for MTProto when the goal is punching through a block, and reach for SOCKS5 when the network merely throttles or when you also want the proxy for something outside Telegram. Neither one is a privacy tool.

Why free MTProto proxies die and rotate

If you have used a couple, you already know the pattern: a link works for a day, then it does not. There are four reasons, and none of them are your fault.

Overload. A secret posted to a channel with 300,000 members gets hammered by tens of thousands of people at once. One hobbyist server cannot carry that, so it slows to nothing and effectively dies even while it is technically up.

The censor catches up. The moment a proxy gets popular, the same filtering system it was built to beat notices the traffic volume to that IP address and blocks the IP outright. Fake TLS delays this, it does not prevent it. Popular equals detected equals dead, usually within hours or days.

Hobby hosting churn. Free proxies run on someone's spare virtual server. That server gets suspended for the traffic, or the person stops paying, or they just move on. The proxy vanishes with no notice.

Deliberate rotation. The good operators know all of the above, so they cycle their IP addresses on purpose to stay ahead of the blocks. That is a feature, not a bug, but it means the specific link you saved is meant to expire.

This is the same churn we measure on the public web every day. Across 47 million proxy checks, most free proxies are datacenter IPs that die within minutes to hours, and only a small fraction are alive at any given moment. Free MTProto proxies live in the same reality, with a censor actively hunting them on top. Keep several, expect to rotate, and do not get attached to any single one. If you want to confirm a proxy is even reachable before you paste it in, our proxy checker helps, though note it targets HTTP and SOCKS, not the MTProto handshake itself.

Are free MTProto proxies safe?

Safer than most free proxies for one specific reason, and risky in the ways every stranger's server is risky. Split it into two questions.

Can the proxy read my messages? No. Telegram's own encryption wraps your traffic between your app and Telegram's servers, and the proxy only relays that scrambled data. It cannot read your chats, your contacts or your media, even a malicious one. This is the real advantage over a plain free HTTP or SOCKS proxy, where an operator can read anything that is not independently encrypted.

What can the operator do, then? Three things worth knowing:

• See your metadata. Your real IP address, the fact that you are using Telegram, and the timing and volume of your traffic. In a country where using Telegram is itself the sensitive act, that is not nothing.
• Force a promoted channel. Telegram lets a proxy owner pin a "sponsored" channel to the top of your chat list while you are connected through them. Most of the time it is harmless advertising. Occasionally it is spam or a scam channel. You can leave it, and it is the single most common annoyance of free proxies.
• Log and correlate. A hostile operator can record who connects and when. Nothing they see decrypts your messages, but metadata alone can matter to some people.

The honest rule: a free MTProto proxy is excellent for getting a blocked app open so you can read and message normally, because the content stays encrypted no matter who runs the relay. It is not a tool for hiding the fact that you use Telegram from someone watching your connection. If that is your threat model, you are looking for Tor or a trustworthy VPN, not a random proxy from a channel.

What to actually do

If Telegram is blocked where you are, grab a Fake TLS (ee) MTProto proxy from a live Telegram channel, add it by link, and keep two or three spares because they rotate. If you are technical and the block is serious, run your own from the open-source server on a cheap VPS, because a private secret is the only one a censor cannot pre-block. And if your network only throttles rather than blocks, the SOCKS5 route is simpler.

For the SOCKS5 path, our free proxy list is re-checked every few minutes across 100+ countries in HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5, so you can pull a fresh SOCKS5 entry and drop it straight into Telegram's proxy settings. Expect the same rotation there that you get with any free proxy. If you need a connection that actually stays up, without the daily hunt for a working link, that is what paid residential proxies are for, and ours start at $0.99/GB pay-as-you-go with no KYC. For simply reading a blocked channel, though, free is genuinely fine. Grab one, paste it in, and get back to your messages.