Telegram Channel & Group Scraper

Scraper for public Telegram channels and groups. It reads data directly from Telegram's public web preview (t.me/s/<channel>), so there is no login, no proxy, and no browser automation involved. That keeps runs fast and keeps Compute Unit usage close to zero.

What it does

The actor collects channel/profile metadata (name, bio, follower count, verified status) and, optionally, the message history: text, view counts, media links, replies, forwards, polls, the message author (for channels with multiple posters), and link previews.

Common uses:

• Monitoring competitors, industry news, or crypto/finance channels
• Feeding messages into sentiment analysis or LLM pipelines
• Building lead lists from profile bios and follower counts
• Indexing media links and URL previews shared in a channel

Pricing

This actor uses Pay-per-Event pricing:

• $0.80 per 1,000 messages scraped ($0.0008 per message)
• $0.002 per channel analyzed

There are no separate Compute Unit charges. You pay only for the data that gets extracted.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
profiles	Array	(required)	Usernames or full profile links (e.g. https://t.me/durov or durov). The input form prefills this with ["telegram"].
collectMessages	Boolean	true	When enabled, messages are extracted along with the profile. When disabled, only profile metadata is returned.
oldestMessageDate	String	(empty)	Only scrape messages posted on or after this date (e.g. 2023-06-15).
scrapeLastNDays	Integer	(empty)	Number of days to look back. 1 means today only, 2 means today and yesterday, and so on. If both date fields are set, whichever is more recent applies.

Output

Each dataset item is a flat JSON object representing one message, with the profile metadata repeated on every item so it's ready for direct database insertion. If collectMessages is disabled, one item per profile is returned instead.

Sample item:

{
  "username": "@durov",
  "fullName": "Pavel Durov",
  "avatarUrl": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/...",
  "followers": 11000000,
  "verified": true,
  "bio": "Founder of Telegram.",
  "url": "https://telegram.me/s/durov",
  "message": {
    "fulldate": "2024-07-31T21:11:09.000Z",
    "date": "July 31, 2024",
    "views": 21000,
    "image": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/...",
    "video": "",
    "document": "",
    "description": "🚩 Big day! Today we introduce the Telegram Browser and Mini App Store...",
    "preview": {
      "link": "https://telegram.org/blog/w3-browser-mini-app-store/",
      "text": "Telegram Browser, Gifting Stars and More..."
    },
    "link": "https://telegram.me/s/durov/340",
    "reply": "",
    "poll": "",
    "forwardedFrom": "",
    "author": "Pavel Durov"
  }
}

preview is null when a message has no link preview attached.

Limitations

This works only on public channels and groups. Private channels, restricted groups, and channels that require joining can't be accessed. Telegram also doesn't publish member lists, so member scraping isn't possible.