Telegram Channel Scraper

Turn any public Telegram channel into a clean dataset of posts, media, views, and reactions — no login, no API key.

The Telegram Channel Scraper reads the public web preview of Telegram channels and extracts every post: text (plain and HTML), publish date, view count, reactions, images, videos, documents, polls, link previews, forwards and replies. It also captures the channel itself — title, description, photo, verified badge and subscriber count. Built for social-listening and OSINT teams, researchers, marketers, news monitors, and anyone tracking what a channel publishes without wiring up the Telegram API.

⚡ Quick start

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://t.me/s/telegram" },
    { "url": "https://t.me/telegram/435" }
  ],
  "channels": ["durov"],
  "maxItems": 5
}

🧩 Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
startUrls	array	one of startUrls/channels	—	Telegram URLs to scrape. A channel (https://t.me/telegram or https://t.me/s/telegram) returns the channel info plus its newest posts, walking back through older pages; a post (https://t.me/telegram/435) returns that single post.
channels	array	one of startUrls/channels	—	Channel usernames to scrape in addition to Start URLs, with or without @.
maxItems	integer	no	5	Maximum dataset items per start URL or channel. The channel-info row counts as one item when enabled.
includeChannelInfo	boolean	no	true	Push one channel item (title, description, photo, subscribers, media counters) before the channel's posts.
proxyConfiguration	object	no	{ "useApifyProxy": false }	Apify proxy settings. Telegram's public preview works without a proxy.

Only channels with a public web preview can be scraped. Private channels, groups, and user accounts have no preview and are skipped with a warning.

📤 Output

The dataset mixes two item types, distinguished by itemType: one channel row per channel (when enabled), followed by its post rows, newest first.

Fields — post

Field	Type	Description
itemType	string	Always post.
id	number	Message id inside the channel.
url	string	Public post URL, e.g. https://t.me/telegram/435.
channelUsername	string	Channel username without @.
channelTitle	string | null	Channel display name.
channelUrl	string	Channel URL.
author	string | null	Signed author name, when the channel shows post signatures.
text	string | null	Message text as plain text, line breaks preserved.
textHtml	string | null	Message text with Telegram's formatting (bold, links, emoji).
date	string | null	Publish time, ISO-8601 (UTC).
views	number | null	View count.
reactions	array	{ emoji, emojiId, paid, count } per reaction. emoji is the Unicode glyph; custom emoji expose emojiId; Telegram Stars reactions have paid: true.
links	string[]	Outbound links found in the message text.
images	string[]	Photo URLs.
videos	array	{ url, thumbnail, duration } per video.
documents	array	{ title, extra } per attached file.
poll	object | null	{ question, options: [{ text, percent }] }.
linkPreview	object | null	{ url, siteName, title, description, image } of the link preview card.
forwardedFrom	object | null	{ name, url } of the original channel for forwarded posts.
replyTo	object | null	{ url, author, text } of the quoted post for replies.

Fields — channel

Field	Type	Description
itemType	string	Always channel.
username	string	Channel username without @.
url	string	Channel URL.
title	string | null	Channel display name.
description	string | null	Channel description.
photo	string | null	Channel photo URL.
verified	boolean	Whether the channel carries Telegram's verified badge.
subscribers	number | null	Subscriber count.
photos	number | null	Number of photos posted.
videos	number | null	Number of videos posted.
files	number | null	Number of files posted.
links	number | null	Number of links posted.

💡 Use cases

• Social listening & brand monitoring — track what channels in your niche publish and how audiences react.
• News and OSINT monitoring — archive breaking-news, government, and community channels with timestamps and view counts.
• Content research — find the best-performing post formats in a vertical by views and reactions.
• Lead and partner discovery — pull subscriber counts and descriptions for channel prospecting.
• Datasets for analysis — feed post text and engagement into sentiment, trend, or ML pipelines.

❓ FAQ

• Do I need a Telegram account or API key? No. The scraper reads the public web preview that Telegram serves for every public channel.
• Why does a channel return no posts? Only channels with a public preview are supported. Private channels, groups, bots and personal accounts have no preview and are skipped with a warning in the log.
• How far back can it go? As far as the channel history reaches — set maxItems to control how many pages of 20 posts are walked.
• Are comments included? No. Comments live in a separate discussion group and are not part of the channel preview.
• Can I scrape a single post? Yes — pass https://t.me/<channel>/<postId> as a start URL.
• Do I need a proxy? Not usually. If you see empty pages under heavy usage, enable Apify Proxy in proxyConfiguration.

🔗 More scrapers by Anyx

• Bluesky Scraper
• Threads Scraper
• X (Twitter) Scraper
• Reddit Scraper
• Facebook Posts Scraper

🤝 Anyx Solutions

We build custom scrapers and data-extraction pipelines.

• Email: tantosthor@gmail.com