pixelGram

Telegram desktop client built with Kotlin, Compose Multiplatform and Material 3 Expressive, powered by TDLib (via TDLight).

Channel: @pixelgramclient

Screenshots

Music player with Material 3 morphing controls	Reactions and message actions
Polls, calls, voice and files	Sign in with a QR code
Appearance settings	Every Material 3 Expressive shape for avatars
Bubble corners with a live preview

Features

• Material 3 Expressive UI from the official Compose Material 3 library
• Dynamic color schemes generated with Google's material-color-utilities
• Material You from your wallpaper with matugen (Linux)
• Avatar shapes: all official Material 3 shapes (MaterialShapes) and a custom corner radius
• Message bubble corner and tail radius in a separate settings section
• Chat folders in a Material 3 navigation rail or as tabs, optional hidden "All chats"

What file should I download?

Every release has the same set of files. Pick the one for your system:

File	Who it's for
pixelGram-…-windows-x64-setup.exe	Windows, recommended. The Material 3 installer: choose a folder, watch the progress, launch pixelGram at the end.
pixelGram-…-windows-x64.msi	Windows, if you prefer the standard Windows Installer, deploy pixelGram with scripts (msiexec /i … /qn), or the Setup.exe is blocked on your PC. Installs the same app.
pixelGram-…-windows-x64-portable.zip	Windows without installing: unpack anywhere, even on a USB drive. Your data stays in the pixelgram-data folder next to the app.
pixelgram-…-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst	Arch Linux and derivatives (CachyOS, EndeavourOS, Manjaro, etc).
pixelGram-…-x86_64.AppImage	Any other Linux distribution, as a single file.
pixelGram-…-linux-x86_64.tar.gz	Any Linux, as a plain folder you unpack and run.
pixelGram-…-macos-arm64.dmg	macOS on Apple Silicon (M1 and newer). Intel Macs are not supported.
SHA256SUMS-*.txt	Checksums to verify the downloaded files. You don't need them to install.

Not sure on Windows? Take the setup.exe. Already have pixelGram? You don't need to download anything: it checks for updates on start and offers to install them.

Install

• Arch Linux and derivatives: sudo pacman -U pixelgram-*.pkg.tar.zst
• Windows: run the -setup.exe (or the .msi), or unpack the portable .zip
• Any Linux (AppImage): chmod +x pixelGram-x86_64.AppImage && ./pixelGram-x86_64.AppImage
• Any Linux (archive): unpack pixelGram-linux-x86_64.tar.gz and run pixelGram/bin/pixelGram
• macOS (Apple Silicon): open pixelGram-macos-arm64.dmg and drag pixelGram to Applications
• Sign in by phone, code, two-step password or QR code

Building

Requirements: JDK 21.

./gradlew run                    # run from sources
./gradlew createDistributable    # Linux app folder (Arch package: packaging/arch)
./gradlew packageMsi             # Windows .msi
./gradlew packageDmg             # macOS .dmg (Apple Silicon)
./gradlew createDistributable    # portable folder in build/compose/binaries

Telegram API credentials (from https://my.telegram.org) can be passed at build time with TELEGRAM_API_ID / TELEGRAM_API_HASH environment variables or the pixelgram.apiId / pixelgram.apiHash Gradle properties. Without them the app asks for them on first launch.

On Linux the TDLib native library needs OpenSSL 3 (any current distribution).

macOS

The macOS build uses the same Compose Multiplatform sources and the same Material 3 Expressive UI as the Linux and Windows builds. TDLib is shipped as the official macos_arm64 native library, so Apple Silicon is required.

The app bundle is ad hoc signed and carries microphone/camera usage strings, tg:// URL registration and a notification bridge. Downloaded builds are not notarized; if Gatekeeper blocks the first launch, open the app from the context menu or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/pixelGram.app.

Set CODESIGN_IDENTITY (or -Ppixelgram.macSigningIdentity) to a Developer ID Application identity to sign a release build instead of using the ad hoc signature. macOS may withhold notification authorization from ad hoc builds; pixelGram then falls back to its in-app notification style.

The bundle metadata (usage descriptions, URL scheme, high-DPI flag) is applied after jpackage in build.gradle.kts. macOS does not need matugen: dynamic colors from the system are not part of the design.

Material You with matugen (Linux)

Enable Settings → Appearance → Dynamic colors from matugen, then add to ~/.config/matugen/config.toml:

[templates.pixelgram]
input_path = '~/.config/pixelgram/matugen-template.json'
output_path = '~/.config/pixelgram/matugen.json'

Run matugen image /path/to/wallpaper.png and pixelGram picks up the colors.

Data

All data lives in ~/.local/share/pixelgram (Linux), %APPDATA%\pixelgram (Windows) or ~/Library/Application Support/pixelgram (macOS).

The previous C++ version (AyuGram Desktop fork) is kept in the legacy-cpp branch.

Credits

• Mategram: the blurred spoiler effect is based on their formatted text rendering.
• Material Player by @RnPlugins: the morphing playback buttons in the mini player follow its controls row.
• end-4/dots-hyprland: the password field with Material shapes comes from its lock screen.
• Telegram Desktop (GPLv3): swipe to reply with a touchpad follows its swipe_handler.cpp: direction lock, reply on release, damped overswipe and the bounce at the threshold.
• kitty by Kovid Goyal (GPLv3): the Kitty trail cursor style is ported from its cursor_trail.c.
• NTgCalls by the PyTgCalls team (LGPL-3.0): voice and video calls and screen sharing. pixelGram downloads its unmodified shared library from the official release on the first call and checks its SHA-256.

License

GPLv3, see LICENSE.