Telegram Channel Scraper - Messages, Search & Subscribers

Telegram Channel Scraper collects data from public Telegram channels and returns clean, flat JSON. It has three jobs:

• Read the message history of any public channel: text, views, reactions, photos, videos, link previews, forwards and replies.
• Search a channel's recent posts by keyword.
• Get channel info with the subscriber count.

It is made for analysts, researchers, marketers and data teams who need Telegram channel data without a Telegram account, API keys, proxies or cookies. Pricing is pay-per-event: $0.003 per message, plus a $0.005 start fee for each channel you give it.

What is a public Telegram channel?

Telegram is a messaging app. A channel is a one-to-many feed: the owner posts messages and subscribers read them. Public channels have a username and a t.me link. This Actor works with public channels only. Private groups, private chats and invite links are not supported. Channel owners can also switch off the web preview, and those channels return nothing.

What data can you get?

Modes

Mode	Give it	You get
channelPosts (Channel messages)	channels, optional oldestDate	the latest messages of each channel, newest first, up to 1,000 per channel
search (Search channel messages by keyword)	channels and keywords	the messages among the ~100 most recent posts of each channel that contain the keyword
channelInfo (Channel info)	channels	one record per channel: name, verified, description, subscribers, number of photos, videos and links, picture

Channel messages are read newest first, 100 per request, back to the channel's first post (the example channel goes back to 2015). You can stop at a number (maxResults, up to 1,000 per channel) or at a date (oldestDate).

Message items (modes channelPosts and search)

Field	What it contains
text	Message text or media caption; null for media without a caption
publishedAt	Publish time, ISO 8601 UTC
viewCount	Views of the message
reactionCount	Sum of all reactions
reactions	List of reactions: emoji (null for custom emoji), count, paid (true for paid Telegram Stars reactions)
url	Link to the message
messageType	text, photo, video, album and so on
photoUrls	Photo links (temporary; download soon after the run)
videoUrls	Video links (temporary; download soon after the run)
linkPreviewUrl	Link of the preview card under the message
linkPreviewTitle	Title of the preview card
isForwarded	True for a message forwarded from elsewhere
forwardedFrom	Where a forwarded message came from
replyToMessageId	The message in the same channel this one replies to
author	Post signature or channel name shown on the message
postKey	Unique key of a message: <channel>/<messageId>
messageId	Message number inside the channel
channel	Channel username
channelTitle	Channel name; null in search mode
channelSubscriberCount	Subscribers of the channel; null in search mode
channelVerified	Whether the channel carries the verified badge; null in search mode
channelPhotoUrl	Link to the channel picture; null in search mode
channelDescription	Channel description as published; null in search mode
keyword	The keyword that found the message (search mode only)
type	Always message for these items

Channel items (mode channelInfo)

Field	What it contains
subscriberCount	Subscribers of the channel
title	Channel name
username	Channel username
verified	Whether the channel is verified
description	Channel description as published
photoCount	Photos shared in the channel
videoCount	Videos shared in the channel
linkCount	Links shared in the channel
photoUrl	Channel picture link
url	Link to the channel
type	Always channel for these items

Counts that Telegram shows as text, such as "10.5M" or "3.42K", are returned as whole numbers. The dataset has two ready-made views: Messages (channel, text, publishedAt, viewCount, reactionCount, messageType, url) and Channels (username, title, subscriberCount, verified, description, url).

How to use Telegram Channel Scraper

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console.
2. Choose a mode: Channel messages, Search channel messages by keyword, or Channel info.
3. Add one or more public channels. You can paste usernames or links.
4. For search, add keywords. For channel messages, optionally set an oldest date. Set the maximum results per channel.
5. Click Start and wait for the run to finish.
6. Open the dataset and export it as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it through the Apify API.

An empty input {} also works: it reads the 20 latest messages of the example channel and runs in seconds.

Input

Field	Type	Required	What it does	Default
mode	string	Required	channelPosts, search or channelInfo	channelPosts
channels	array of strings	Optional	Public channel usernames (durov), @durov, or links (https://t.me/durov, https://t.me/s/durov, a link to one post)	Falls back to durov when empty
keywords	array of strings	Optional (mode search)	Search keywords; each is searched in each channel. Only the ~100 most recent posts of a channel are checked	Falls back to telegram when empty
oldestDate	string (YYYY-MM-DD)	Optional (mode channelPosts)	Stop reading a channel at messages older than this date. Leave empty to read back until maxResults	empty
maxResults	integer, 1 to 1000	Optional	Maximum messages per channel (channel messages: up to 1,000) or per channel and keyword (search: up to 100). Ignored in channel info mode	20

maxResults is the limit for each channel (in search: for each channel and keyword). With oldestDate, reading of a channel stops at the first message older than that date, even if maxResults is not reached; the run then continues with the next channel.

Example: channel messages since a date

{
  "mode": "channelPosts",
  "channels": ["durov", "https://t.me/s/telegram"],
  "maxResults": 100,
  "oldestDate": "2026-01-01"
}

Example: keyword search in recent posts

{
  "mode": "search",
  "channels": ["durov"],
  "keywords": ["privacy", "wallet"],
  "maxResults": 100
}

Example: channel info and subscriber counts

{
  "mode": "channelInfo",
  "channels": ["durov", "telegram"]
}

Output example

Message item (mode channelPosts)

The values below are illustrative.

{
  "type": "message",
  "postKey": "examplenews/1234",
  "messageId": 1234,
  "channel": "examplenews",
  "channelTitle": "Example News",
  "channelSubscriberCount": 48200,
  "channelVerified": false,
  "channelPhotoUrl": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/example.jpg",
  "channelDescription": "Daily news digest.",
  "url": "https://t.me/examplenews/1234",
  "messageType": "text",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-11T16:04:02Z",
  "text": "New report on mobile payments is out ...",
  "viewCount": 15300,
  "author": "Example News",
  "isForwarded": false,
  "forwardedFrom": null,
  "replyToMessageId": null,
  "linkPreviewUrl": "https://example.com/report",
  "linkPreviewTitle": "Mobile Payments Report 2026",
  "photoUrls": [],
  "videoUrls": [],
  "reactionCount": 420,
  "reactions": [{"emoji": "⭐", "count": 120, "paid": true}, {"emoji": null, "count": 300, "paid": false}]
}

Search items have the same fields plus keyword, and channelTitle, channelSubscriberCount, channelVerified, channelPhotoUrl and channelDescription are null.

Channel item (mode channelInfo)

{
  "type": "channel",
  "username": "examplenews",
  "url": "https://t.me/examplenews",
  "title": "Example News",
  "verified": false,
  "description": "Daily news digest.",
  "subscriberCount": 48200,
  "photoCount": 1320,
  "videoCount": 215,
  "linkCount": 890,
  "photoUrl": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/example.jpg"
}

How much does it cost?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. These are the current prices:

Charge event	Price (USD)	When it is charged
run-start	$0.005	Channel messages: once for each channel. Search: once for each channel and keyword pair. Channel info: once per run
result	$0.003	Each message returned (channel messages and search)
profile	$0.005	Each channel found (channel info)

Worked examples:

• 100 messages from one channel cost $0.005 + 100 × $0.003 = $0.305.
• 1,000 messages from one channel cost $0.005 + 1,000 × $0.003 = $3.005.
• Channel info for 10 channels costs $0.005 + 10 × $0.005 = $0.055.

On the free Apify plan, a run returns at most 20 results in total; any paid Apify plan removes the limit. On the free Apify plan each account can run this Actor up to 3 times per 24 hours and 10 times per 7 days, within a small lifetime free allowance shared across all our Actors, and all free accounts share a daily free budget. When any of these limits is reached, the run stops before fetching anything and nothing is charged.

How charging works:

• The first start fee is charged when the first request to the data source succeeds, even if that request returns nothing. It is not charged when the data source fails from the start or rejects the inputs, or when your spending limit cannot cover it.
• In channel messages and search, each further start fee (for the next channel, or channel and keyword pair) is charged before that input's first request, and it is kept even if that input then fails or returns nothing.
• In channel messages and search, a channel that does not exist, a channel whose owner switched off the web preview, or a keyword with no matches returns nothing but still costs its start fee, because the request was made.
• In channel info, an unknown channel returns nothing and costs no channel fee (profile). The run's single start fee is still charged once the first request succeeds, so a channel-info run with only unknown channels costs $0.005.
• If the data source is down from the start, nothing is charged. A start fee already paid for a channel (or channel and keyword pair) is not refunded if the source fails during it.
• You are never charged for items the Actor did not deliver, and you never pay for more than maxResults messages per channel.
• The run stops by itself if your spending limit is reached.

Use cases

• Market and crypto monitoring: what announcement channels post, how fast they post, and what gets views and reactions.
• News and OSINT: collect a set of public channels into one dataset, with timestamps and links back to the source.
• Channel research: compare subscriber counts, posting frequency and engagement across channels in a niche.
• Brand and topic tracking: search the recent posts of a list of channels for your brand, product or topic keywords.
• Source and media analysis: see which websites a channel links to through linkPreviewUrl, and which posts are forwarded through isForwarded and forwardedFrom.
• AI and data projects: Telegram text with clean metadata for classification, summaries and trend analysis.

Integrations and API

You can start runs from Apify Console or through the Apify API, schedule them (for example, every day to collect new channel messages), and connect the results to Apify integrations and webhooks. Every run stores its results in a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV or Excel. This means you can get Telegram channel data into your own tools without setting up Telegram API keys.

Python example with apify-client:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("clover_folktale/telegram-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "channelPosts",
    "channels": ["durov", "https://t.me/s/telegram"],
    "maxResults": 100,
    "oldestDate": "2026-01-01",
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Tips and limits

• Any channel format works. durov, @durov, https://t.me/durov, https://t.me/s/durov, or a link to one post.
• Search is shallow. There is no full-text search over a whole channel: search looks only at the ~100 most recent posts of each channel and returns the ones that match. For older posts, read the channel with channelPosts and oldestDate and filter the result.
• No comments. Replies in a channel's discussion group are not available. replyToMessageId only shows which channel message a post answers.
• Channels with the web preview switched off return nothing, and some channels are not public at all. They are skipped (their start fee still applies). In channel messages and search, empty channels or keywords do not stop the run. Private groups and invite links are not supported.
• Empty fields in search mode: channelTitle, channelSubscriberCount, channelVerified, channelPhotoUrl and channelDescription are null. Use channelInfo for them.
• Empty fields in channel messages: forwardedFrom, replyToMessageId, videoUrls, linkPreviewUrl and linkPreviewTitle are filled only when the message has them. text is null for media without a caption.
• Numbers are a snapshot. Views, reactions and subscriber counts are what Telegram shows at the time of the run.
• Media links expire. Photo and video links are temporary; download what you need soon after the run.
• No author IDs. Telegram does not expose sender or author IDs on channel posts, so there are none to return. author is the signature or channel name shown on the post.
• Free plan: a run returns at most 20 results in total. Any paid Apify plan removes the limit.
• How runs stop. The run stops by itself when your spending limit is reached. In channel info mode only, the run ends as failed after 5 unknown channels, to protect your budget.

FAQ

Do I need a Telegram account or login?

No. You do not need a Telegram account, API keys, proxies or cookies. You only give the Actor public channel names or links.

Is it legal to scrape Telegram channels?

The Actor returns only public data: the message, its numbers and links, the author signature shown on the post, plus the channel's public profile (name, verified badge, picture, description, subscriber count). It does not access private chats, private groups or direct messages. The channel description is returned as published, including any business contact info the owner put there. You are responsible for how you use the data and for following the laws that apply to you.

How fresh is the data?

The data is read live during each run. Views, reactions and subscriber counts are what Telegram shows at that moment.

Why are some fields empty?

In search mode the channel fields are null; run channelInfo to get them. Fields such as forwardedFrom, replyToMessageId, videoUrls and the link preview fields are filled only when the message has them.

How many messages can I get?

Up to 1,000 messages per channel in channel messages mode, and up to 100 per channel and keyword in search mode. You can give many channels in one run. On the free Apify plan a run returns at most 20 results in total.

Can I search a whole channel's history?

No. Search checks only the ~100 most recent posts of each channel. To find older posts, read the channel with channelPosts (optionally with oldestDate) and filter the dataset yourself.

Can I schedule runs and export the data?

Yes. You can schedule runs in Apify, start them through the API, and export each dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel.

A field or mode is missing. What can I do?

Open an issue from the Actor page and it will be looked at.

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