How to Make WhatsApp Web Look Like Telegram

If you use both WhatsApp and Telegram, you've probably noticed something: Telegram just looks better. The clean blue accent, the generous spacing, the readable sans-serif typography, the way every visual decision seems deliberate. Telegram users have been able to customize their interface for years — accent colors, custom backgrounds, full theme editors. WhatsApp Web users get the same flat green chat list everyone else has been staring at since 2015.

The good news: you can get Telegram's look on WhatsApp Web in about five minutes. Real colors, real fonts, real layout — not just a slightly bluer background. Here's how.

Step 1: Install the Extension

You'll need WhatsApp Web Customizer for this. It's the only Chrome extension that gives you the granular control needed to actually recreate Telegram's aesthetic:

👉 Install WhatsApp Web Customizer

Free, open source, 30 seconds to install. Pin it to your toolbar.

Why this specific extension? Telegram's look requires editing chat bubble colors, sidebar tint, accent color, font family, font size, and background — all independently of each other. Most WhatsApp Web extensions only let you change a gradient or pick from a fixed preset list. To actually pull off Telegram, you need full control over every element.

Step 2: Switch to a Sans-Serif Font Like Telegram's

Telegram Desktop uses a clean, neutral sans-serif font with excellent readability at small sizes. WhatsApp Web's default font is fine but feels noticeably more dated next to Telegram.

Open the extension popup, click the Typography tab, and pick one of these:

Inter — the closest free match to Telegram's design language. Clean, modern, designed for screen interfaces.
Roboto — slightly softer, also widely used in modern messaging UIs.
Open Sans — friendlier and rounder, if you want a warmer feel.

While you're there, bump the font size up by 1 or 2 steps. Telegram tends to feel a touch more spacious than WhatsApp Web, and a slightly larger font is part of why.

Step 3: Build the Telegram Color Palette

This is where most of the visual transformation happens. Open the Themes tab, click Create (or the Custom tab → New Theme), and you'll land in the theme editor.

Telegram's signature look comes from a small, disciplined color palette built around blue. Here's the recipe:

Main background (light mode)

Soft white-blue: #FFFFFF or a barely-tinted off-white like #F4F4F5

Main background (dark mode — Telegram's "Night" theme equivalent)

Deep slate: #17212B (Telegram's actual dark background color)

Sent chat bubbles (your messages)

Telegram blue: #3390EC for the bubble background
White (#FFFFFF) for the text

Received chat bubbles (their messages)

Light gray-blue: #FFFFFF with a subtle shadow in light mode
Dark slate-blue: #182533 in dark mode
Black text in light mode, white text in dark mode

Sidebar and chat list

Slightly off-white: #F4F4F5 in light mode
Slightly darker than main background: #0F1A24 in dark mode

Accent color (links, online status, active chat highlight)

Telegram's signature blue: #3390EC

Apply these one by one in the editor. The change happens in real time — you'll watch WhatsApp Web morph into something that feels distinctly Telegram as each color clicks into place.

Step 4: Add the Generous Spacing Telegram Is Known For

Telegram's design philosophy makes heavy use of white space. The chat list breathes. Messages don't feel cramped against each other. There's a reason Telegram is regularly cited in UI design analyses for its "generous use of white space."

You can't move pixels around WhatsApp Web like a designer with full control of the DOM, but you can get most of the way there:

Turn on Minimal Mode in the extension to hide Archive, Status, locked chats, and Channels. Telegram doesn't have any of these — removing them makes your sidebar feel like Telegram's clean conversation list.
Use a slightly larger font size (which you already did in Step 2) — larger text creates implicit spacing.
Use a solid background, not a doodled or busy one. Telegram's default chats use clean solid colors, not patterns.

The combined effect is that your WhatsApp Web suddenly feels less busy. Less chrome. More room to read.

Step 5: Set the Right Background

Telegram's default chat backgrounds are subtle — either a soft solid color or a barely-perceptible pattern. They're never visually loud.

Three options that get you close:

Solid soft blue-gray — pick something close to #E7EBF0 for light mode, or #0E1621 for dark mode
Subtle gradient — Telegram sometimes uses gentle gradients. Try #FFFFFF → #F0F4F8 for light, or #17212B → #0E1621 for dark
A custom abstract image — if you want to mimic the optional patterned backgrounds Telegram offers, upload a soft, low-contrast image (geometric patterns work well)

The extension lets you set different backgrounds for the chat window, welcome screen, sidebar, and chat list independently — so you can keep the sidebar a clean solid color while the chat window has the gradient or pattern, just like Telegram does.

Step 6: Save It (Or Build It as JSON)

Once it looks right, save your theme. It'll appear in the Custom tab and stay there — one click to apply, one click to switch back.

For power users: you can also build this theme as a JSON file. Click Download Template, edit the JSON with the colors above, and drag it back into the extension. This is useful if you want to:

Version-control your theme as you tweak it
Build separate "Telegram light" and "Telegram dark" variants you can swap between
Share the theme with friends who also use WhatsApp Web

We covered the full JSON workflow in our themes installation guide.

Why This Works (And Why Most WhatsApp Web Extensions Can't Do It)

There's a reason this guide has six steps and not one. Recreating Telegram's look means editing every visual property independently — bubble colors separately from sidebar, separately from accent, separately from background, separately from font.

Most WhatsApp Web theme extensions don't let you do this. The biggest competitor on the Chrome Web Store gives you a gradient start color, a gradient end color, and two opacity sliders. You cannot recreate Telegram with that. You cannot recreate anything specific with that — only tint WhatsApp Web a different shade of itself.

WhatsApp Web Customizer was built so users actually get full control. Hundreds of editable properties, real-time preview, JSON import/export, and your own custom fonts if 500+ built-in ones aren't enough. It's why MakeUseOf, TechPP, and other tech publications have featured it throughout 2025–2026 — and it's why recreating Telegram on WhatsApp Web is actually possible in 2026, rather than wishful thinking.

Your Telegram Theme Sticks

Once you've built and saved your Telegram-style theme, it stays saved. Reload WhatsApp Web, close the tab, restart your browser — the theme reapplies automatically. You don't need to log in, sync, or back anything up. It just stays Telegram-blue.

Going Further

Once you've nailed the Telegram look, a few directions worth exploring:

Build matching light and dark variants — Telegram users typically have both, switching based on time of day. The extension makes it easy to keep both saved and switch with one click. See our dark mode guide for more depth on dark theme construction specifically.
Set up Telegram-style quick replies — Telegram has a strong culture of quick, snappy responses. WhatsApp Web Customizer's quick reply bubbles let you pre-load your most common phrases so you can fire them off Telegram-style.
Try other looks — once you've built one custom theme, the next one takes half as long. See how to make WhatsApp Web look like iMessage if you want to try the Apple aesthetic next.

The Bottom Line

You can't get Telegram's customization built into WhatsApp Web — Meta isn't going to ship that. But you can get the same visual result with a single Chrome extension and about five minutes of color picking. Blue accent, clean typography, generous spacing, soft backgrounds — all possible, all today.

👉 Install WhatsApp Web Customizer and build your Telegram theme. If you nail the look and want to share the JSON file with the community, drop it in our Discord — we've been collecting user-built themes and a Telegram one would be a great addition alongside the iMessage one users have already shared.