# Telegram Channel Scraper: Posts, Views, Reactions & Media (`best_apis/telegram-channel-scraper`) Actor

Scrape public Telegram channels without login or API keys: every post with text, date, views, reactions, photos, videos, link previews, polls and forwards, plus channel subscribers. Search inside channels, date filter, single posts. $0.50 per 1,000 posts.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/best_apis/telegram-channel-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [A Q](https://apify.com/best_apis) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, News, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Telegram Channel Scraper: Posts, Views, Reactions & Media

Scrape any **public Telegram channel** in seconds, with no Telegram account, phone number, API ID or login. Give it channel usernames or t.me links and get clean, structured JSON for every post:

- **Post text** (emoji kept, line breaks kept), optional original HTML
- **Date**, post ID and permanent link
- **Views**, **reactions** per emoji with counts, total reactions and paid Telegram Stars
- **Media**: photo URLs, video URLs with thumbnails and duration, documents
- **Link previews** (URL, site, title, description, image), **polls** with options and percentages
- **Forwards** (source channel), **replies**, edited flag, author signature
- **Links, hashtags and @mentions** found in the post
- One **channel row** per channel: title, description, verified badge, **subscribers**, photo/video/file/link counts

It also supports **search inside a channel** (Telegram's own search), a **date filter** ("last 7 days"), and **single post links**.

### Pricing: $0.50 per 1,000 posts

| | This Actor | Typical Telegram channel scrapers on Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Posts | **$0.50 per 1,000** | $2.00 to $10.00 per 1,000 |
| Channel info rows | **$0.50 per 1,000** | $1.00 per 1,000 or more |
| Actor start | $0.0005 per GB of memory (256 MB default) | up to $0.01 |

You pay only for rows you receive. Set **Max posts per channel** or **Max rows in total** to cap a run, and your Apify maximum cost per run is respected exactly.

### Use cases

- **Crypto, trading and news monitoring**: schedule a run every hour on the channels you follow and send new posts to Slack, Google Sheets, a webhook or an LLM.
- **Brand and competitor monitoring**: track what channels in your niche post, and which posts get the most views and reactions.
- **Research and journalism**: archive a channel's history with dates, views and forwards for analysis.
- **Marketing and influencer research**: compare channels by subscribers, views per post and engagement.
- **AI agents and RAG**: clean plain text with links as full URLs, ready for embedding.

### Input examples

Latest 20 posts of two channels:

```json
{ "channels": ["telegram", "https://t.me/durov"], "maxPostsPerChannel": 20 }
```

Everything a channel posted in the last 7 days:

```json
{ "channels": ["durov"], "publishedAfter": "7 days", "maxPostsPerChannel": 1000 }
```

Search inside a channel:

```json
{ "channels": ["telegram"], "searchQuery": "stories", "maxPostsPerChannel": 100 }
```

One specific post:

```json
{ "channels": ["https://t.me/durov/531"] }
```

### Output

Post row:

```json
{
  "type": "post", "channel": "durov", "channelTitle": "Pavel Durov", "postId": 531, "url": "https://t.me/durov/531",
  "date": "2026-07-16T20:45:25.000Z",
  "text": "🩵 Telegram now has a Rich Text Editor.\n\nIt supports tables, headings, inline media, lists, AI content, formulas, and more.",
  "views": 5850000,
  "reactions": [{ "emoji": null, "customEmojiId": "5265077361648368841", "count": 54600 }],
  "reactionsTotal": 88810, "paidStars": 6300, "edited": false, "signature": "Pavel Durov",
  "forwardedFrom": null, "replyTo": null, "photos": [],
  "videos": [{ "url": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/....mp4", "thumbnailUrl": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/....jpg", "duration": "0:20" }],
  "documents": [], "linkPreview": null, "poll": null, "links": [], "hashtags": [], "mentions": [],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-29T05:17:08.032Z"
}
```

Channel row:

```json
{
  "type": "channel", "username": "telegram", "title": "Telegram News", "description": "The official Telegram on Telegram.",
  "verified": true, "subscribers": 9230000, "photosCount": 16, "videosCount": 228, "filesCount": null, "linksCount": 378,
  "photoUrl": "https://cdn1.telesco.pe/file/....jpg", "url": "https://t.me/telegram"
}
```

Channels that could not be read (not found, private, or with the web preview turned off) are listed in the `FAILURES` record of the run's key-value store, and the rest of the run continues.

### How it works and limits

The Actor reads Telegram's official public web preview of each channel (`t.me/s/<channel>`), the same page anyone can open in a browser. That means:

- Only **public channels** with the web preview enabled can be scraped. Private channels, groups, and member lists are not supported, by design.
- Counts like views and subscribers are rounded the way Telegram shows them (for example 5.85M).
- Media URLs are Telegram CDN links and can expire after some time, so download files you need soon after the run.

### FAQ

**Do I need a Telegram account or API key?** No. Nothing to set up.

**How fast is it?** About 20 posts per request; a 1,000-post channel history usually takes under a minute.

**Can I get only new posts?** Yes. Schedule the Actor with `publishedAfter` set to your schedule interval (for example "1 hour") and connect an integration.

**Does it collect personal data?** It returns only what channels publish publicly. It does not scrape group members, phone numbers or user profiles. You are responsible for using the data lawfully (for example GDPR).

### Related Actors

- [RSS Feed Reader & Finder](https://apify.com/best_apis/rss-feed-reader): read any RSS, Atom or JSON feed.
- [Hacker News Scraper](https://apify.com/best_apis/hacker-news-scraper): stories, comments and Who is hiring jobs.
- [YouTube Transcript Scraper](https://apify.com/best_apis/youtube-transcript-scraper): transcripts and captions for any video.

# Actor input Schema

## `channels` (type: `array`):

Public channel usernames (durov, @durov) or links (https://t.me/durov, https://t.me/s/durov). A post link like https://t.me/durov/531 returns just that post.

## `maxPostsPerChannel` (type: `integer`):

Newest posts come first; older posts are fetched page by page until this limit.

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Optional. Only posts matching this word or phrase (Telegram's own channel search).

## `publishedAfter` (type: `string`):

Optional. Only posts newer than this: a date (2026-01-01) or a relative time like "24 hours", "7 days", "3 months".

## `includeChannelInfo` (type: `boolean`):

Add one row per channel with title, description, verified badge, subscribers and media counts.

## `includeHtml` (type: `boolean`):

Add the original formatted HTML of each post (bold, links, quotes) next to the plain text.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap for the whole run, so cost stays predictable.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channels": [
    "telegram",
    "durov"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 20,
  "includeChannelInfo": true,
  "includeHtml": false,
  "maxItems": 5000
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `overview` (type: `string`):

No description

## `full` (type: `string`):

No description

## `failures` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "channels": [
        "telegram",
        "durov"
    ],
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 20
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("best_apis/telegram-channel-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "channels": [
        "telegram",
        "durov",
    ],
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 20,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("best_apis/telegram-channel-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "channels": [
    "telegram",
    "durov"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 20
}' |
apify call best_apis/telegram-channel-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,best_apis/telegram-channel-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/kEzLqLV5ZRpEQWFyC/builds/mY8FgTuRzGbsTL4I8/openapi.json