Telegram Channel Scraper

Extract messages from public Telegram channels — with view counts, media, links and subscriber statistics.

No bot token. No phone number. No login.

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Why this scraper

Telegram's own Bot API cannot read foreign channels. A bot only sees channels it has been added to as an administrator. That rules out competitor monitoring, research and anything involving channels you do not control. This Actor reads the public web mirror instead.

View counts are included. Telegram publishes how often each message was seen — the only engagement number the platform exposes. It arrives here as a sortable integer, not as 4.48M.

Past the 20-message limit. Each page carries at most 20 messages. Ask for 5,000 and a naive scraper returns 20. This one walks backwards through message IDs and keeps going.

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What you can extract

Mode	What you get
Channel messages	Text, view count, date, photos, videos, link previews, hashtags, mentions and forwarding source
Channel info	Subscriber count plus how many photos, videos, files and links the channel has posted

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Quick start

1. Pick Channel messages.
2. Enter a channel — durov, @durov or https://t.me/durov all work.
3. Set Maximum results, click Start, download as CSV or JSON.

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Example inputs

Recent messages from a channel

{
  "mode": "messages",
  "channels": ["durov"],
  "maxItems": 2000
}

Monitor several channels at once

{
  "mode": "messages",
  "channels": ["telegram", "durov", "crypto"],
  "maxItems": 3000
}

Find messages about a topic

{
  "mode": "messages",
  "channels": ["telegram"],
  "searchQuery": "update",
  "maxItems": 1000
}

Compare channel reach

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

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Output fields

Messages

Field	Description
text	Message content as plain text, emoji preserved
views	View count as a number — Telegram shows 4.48M, this is sortable
viewsText	The original wording
date	When it was posted (ISO 8601)
channel, messageId, postId, url	Identity and direct link
forwardedFrom, isForwarded	Where a forwarded message came from
hasPhoto, hasVideo, photoUrl, videoUrl	Attached media
linkPreviewUrl, linkPreviewTitle	Link preview card
hashtags, mentions, links	Extracted from the text
isReply, isPoll, author, textLength	Further context

Channel info

channel, title, description, subscribers, photoCount, videoCount, fileCount, linkCount, image, url

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Limits

• Public channels only. Private groups and channels without a public handle are not accessible — by design, and this Actor does not try to bypass that.
• View counts are snapshots from the moment of scraping.
• Comments are not included. Telegram hosts channel discussions in a linked group, which is a separate space.
• Very large channels take time: 20 messages per request means 5,000 messages need 250 requests.

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FAQ

Do I need a bot token or phone number? No. Nothing is required.

Why not use the official Bot API? It only reaches channels where your bot is an admin. For any channel you do not control, it returns nothing.

Can I read private channels? No, and that is deliberate.

How far back can I go? To the channel's first message, as long as it remains public.

What formats can I export? CSV, Excel, JSON, XML, or straight from the Apify API.

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Legal and responsible use

This Actor reads Telegram's own public web preview of public channels. It does not bypass authentication or access private content.

Message content and channel names can be personal data under GDPR. You remain responsible for how you store, analyse and republish the output.