Telegram Channel Scraper - Posts, Views, Reactions

Scrape public Telegram channels without a Telegram account, phone number or API key. Get available public-preview messages with text, date, views, reactions, links, hashtags, media types and forwards, plus the channel's subscriber count, in one clean dataset. Export to JSON, CSV, Excel or use the Apify API. Duplicate message identities are delivered and billed once per run.

Why use it

Manual / Telegram API	This actor
Needs a phone number, api_id/api_hash and a session (MTProto)	No login, no account, no API key
Copy-paste posts one by one	Up to 10,000 posts per channel, newest first
Views and reactions not exportable	Views, reactions per emoji, total reactions as numbers
No filters	Date filter (dateFrom) and keyword filter

Data comes from Telegram's own public web preview (t.me/s/<channel>), the same page anyone sees in a browser.

Use cases

• Brand and competitor monitoring: track what crypto, news, marketing or product channels post and how much engagement it gets.
• Media and OSINT research: archive public channel history with dates and forwards.
• Lead generation and influencer research: compare subscriber counts and average views across channels.
• AI / LLM pipelines: feed clean channel text into RAG, summarization or sentiment models.
• Scheduled monitoring: run daily with dateFrom and send new posts to Slack, Google Sheets or a webhook.

Input

Field	Type	Description
channels	array	Usernames, @username or URLs (https://t.me/durov, https://t.me/s/durov). Empty = demo (durov, telegram).
maxPostsPerChannel	integer	Max messages per channel (default 50, max 10,000). This is a delivery cap, not a guarantee of available history.
maxPagesPerChannel	integer	Max preview pages scanned per channel (default 100, max 1,000). Useful to bound scans with restrictive keyword filters.
dateFrom	string	Optional ISO date, e.g. 2026-09-01. Stops at older posts.
keywords	array	Optional. Only messages containing any keyword are delivered (and charged).
includeChannelInfo	boolean	Add channel title/description/subscribers to every row (default true).

Example 1 - last 100 posts of two channels

{ "channels": ["durov", "https://t.me/telegram"], "maxPostsPerChannel": 100 }

Example 2 - monitoring: posts since a date mentioning keywords

{ "channels": ["durov"], "dateFrom": "2026-09-01", "keywords": ["bitcoin", "ton"], "maxPostsPerChannel": 500 }

Output example (real row, shortened)

{
  "messageId": 548,
  "url": "https://t.me/durov/548",
  "channel": "durov",
  "date": "2026-09-11T16:04:02+00:00",
  "text": "Telegram has become the sponsor of Codeforces ...",
  "views": 1680000,
  "reactions": [{"reaction": "paid_star", "count": 13600}, {"reaction": "5399847211989246390", "count": 28500}],
  "reactionsTotal": 58030,
  "author": "Pavel Durov",
  "forwardedFrom": null,
  "isReply": false,
  "mediaTypes": [],
  "photoUrls": [],
  "videoCount": 0,
  "links": ["https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/156620"],
  "hashtags": [],
  "linkPreviewTitle": "Telegram Returns as Title Sponsor of Codeforces!",
  "channelTitle": "Pavel Durov",
  "channelSubscribers": 10600000,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-27T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Fields

Field	Type	Description
messageId	integer	Message number inside the channel
url	string	Permalink https://t.me/<channel>/<id>
channel	string	Channel username (lowercase)
date	string	ISO 8601 publish time (UTC)
text	string/null	Message text with line breaks
views	integer/null	View count (Telegram rounds large values, e.g. 1.68M)
reactions	array	{reaction, count}; custom emoji are reported by emoji id, paid stars as paid_star
reactionsTotal	integer	Sum of all reaction counts
author	string/null	Signed author, if the channel signs posts
forwardedFrom / forwardedFromUrl	string/null	Original source of forwarded posts
isReply / replyToUrl	boolean / string	Reply metadata
mediaTypes	array	photo, video, document, voice, poll, sticker
photoUrls	array	Photo image URLs
videoCount	integer	Number of videos in the message
links	array	External links in the text
hashtags	array	Hashtags in the text
linkPreviewUrl / linkPreviewTitle	string/null	Link preview card
channelTitle, channelDescription, channelSubscribers, channelPhotos, channelVideos, channelLinks, channelPhotoUrl	mixed	Channel info (when includeChannelInfo)

A run summary is saved in the key-value store as OUTPUT (requested, scraped, perChannel, notFound, failed, invalidInput, duplicates, duplicateMessagesSkipped, chargeLimitReached and coverage).

Coverage and reliability

OUTPUT.coverage.<channel> reports status, stopReason and pagesFetched:

Status / stop reason	Meaning
limited / message_limit, date_filter, charge_limit	A requested or billing bound stopped traversal.
limited / preview_end, empty_preview	Telegram's public preview has no continuation; this does not prove full Telegram history.
partial / page_limit	The scan cap stopped traversal. Raise maxPagesPerChannel if needed.
partial / non_advancing_continuation, invalid_continuation	Telegram returned an unsafe or non-advancing pagination cursor. Delivered rows are retained.
partial or unavailable / upstream_failure	HTTP error, unexpected HTML or mismatched identity; inspect OUTPUT.failed. A total extraction failure fails the run.
unavailable / no_public_preview	The initial preview redirects; private channels, user accounts and disabled previews cannot be distinguished. Listed under notFound, not proof that the channel does not exist.

The actor follows Telegram's continuation link even on a page containing only already-seen messages, while refusing loops. Duplicate message IDs within a page, across pages and duplicate channel aliases are not billed again. Unknown HTTP 200 layouts are extraction failures, never evidence of no content. These safeguards are covered by offline fixtures and regression tests; fixture reproductions are not claims of observed cloud incidents.

How to use

1. Open the actor and add channel usernames or links.
2. Set maxPostsPerChannel and optional dateFrom / keywords.
3. Click Start.
4. Download results as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read them via the Apify API.

Pricing

Pay per event:

Event	Price
Message delivered	$0.0015 ($1.50 per 1,000)
Actor start	$0.00005

Only delivered rows are charged. Filtered-out messages, not-found and invalid channels are never charged. Set a maximum cost per run in Apify and the actor stops exactly at that budget.

Integrations

Works with Zapier, Make, n8n, Slack, Google Sheets, Airbyte, LangChain, webhooks and the Apify API / Python and JavaScript clients. Schedule it daily for monitoring.

FAQ

Do I need a Telegram account or API key? No.

Which channels work? Public channels that show a web preview at https://t.me/s/<username>. Private channels, invite links and user accounts are not supported and are reported in notFound.

Can I get the full history? Not guaranteed. The actor follows available public-preview continuation links until maxPostsPerChannel, maxPagesPerChannel, dateFrom, the charge budget or the preview's end. Public previews may omit messages. Check OUTPUT.coverage; an operational cap of 10,000 does not promise 10,000 available posts.

Are views exact? Telegram shows rounded values for large numbers (e.g. 1.68M); the actor converts them to integers.

Does it download media files? It returns photo URLs and media types, not the files.

Can I search all of Telegram by keyword? No; keywords filter messages inside the channels you provide.

Is it legal? It only reads publicly available web pages. You are responsible for complying with applicable law and Telegram's terms in your use of the data.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
Channel in notFound	Check the username; the channel must be public with web preview enabled.
Fewer posts than requested	The channel has fewer posts, or dateFrom/keywords filtered them. See OUTPUT.
Run stopped early with chargeLimitReached	Your max cost per run was reached; raise it.
invalidInput	Use a username of 4-32 letters, digits or underscores, or a t.me link.