# Telegram Channel Scraper - Public Channel Messages (No API Key) (`flash_scraper/telegram-channel-scraper`) Actor Scrape messages from PUBLIC Telegram channels via the official t.me web preview - no API key, no bot token, no login. Get message text, date, views, author, media type & links as clean rows. Ideal for crypto/news/OSINT monitoring and research. Export CSV/JSON/Excel. - **URL**: https://apify.com/flash\_scraper/telegram-channel-scraper.md - **Developed by:** [Flash Scrape](https://apify.com/flash_scraper) (community) - **Categories:** Social media, News - **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks - **User rating**: No ratings yet ## Pricing from $6.00 / 1,000 results 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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event ## What's an Apify Actor? Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases. 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. Actors are written with capital "A". ## 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. The best way to integrate Actors is as follows. In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md): ```bash npm install apify-client ``` In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md): ```bash pip install apify-client ``` In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): ````bash # MacOS / Linux curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash # Windows irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex ```bash In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md). If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md). For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below. For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt). # README ## Telegram Channel Scraper — public channel messages, no API key or bot token Pull **messages from any public Telegram channel** into a clean, structured dataset — **no API key, no bot token, no phone number, no login**. This actor reads the official Telegram web preview (`t.me/s/`), the same public page anyone can open in a browser, and turns each post into a row: message text, date, view count, author/signature, media type, and every link. **$5 per 1,000 messages** — pay only for the messages you actually get. ### What does it do? Give it a list of **public channel usernames or `t.me` links** and how many recent messages you want per channel. The actor fetches each channel's public preview page, parses every post, and **paginates backwards through the channel history** to reach older messages until it hits your limit or the start of the channel. The result is a tidy, deduped, most-recent-first table you can export to **CSV, JSON, or Excel** — ready for a spreadsheet, a BI tool, or an LLM pipeline. It reads **public broadcast channels only** — the kind that already show a public web preview. It does not log in, does not use a bot token, and cannot access private or invite-only channels or group chats. Because it uses plain HTTP against the public page, it runs fine on datacenter IPs with no proxy required. ### Why use it / who's it for - **Crypto & DeFi researchers** monitoring announcement, signal, and project channels — track calls, listings, and sentiment over time without babysitting the app. - **News & journalism teams** archiving official channels from agencies, governments, and outlets that publish first (or only) on Telegram. - **OSINT & threat-intelligence analysts** collecting public-channel posts into a searchable, timestamped dataset for investigation and monitoring. - **Community & competitor trackers** watching a rival's or a niche's public channel — posting cadence, engagement (views), what links they push, what media they lean on. - **Data scientists & ML teams** building text datasets from public broadcast channels for topic modeling, trend detection, or fine-tuning. - **Marketers & growth teams** benchmarking which posts in a category get the most views, and mining the links a channel shares. ### How to use it 1. Add one or more **channels** — usernames (`telegram`), `@handles` (`@durov`), or full links (`https://t.me/durov`). All three formats are normalized automatically. 2. Set **maxItemsPerChannel** — how many of the most recent messages to pull from each channel (default 100, up to 1,000). 3. Run it. Then export the dataset to **CSV, JSON, or Excel**, or read it straight from the dataset API. Only `channels` matters — everything else has a sensible default, and the demo run works out of the box. ### Input | Field | Type | Description | |---|---|---| | `channels` | array of strings | Public channel usernames or `t.me` links. `telegram`, `@durov`, and `https://t.me/durov` all work. **Required.** | | `maxItemsPerChannel` | integer | Most-recent messages to pull per channel (default `100`, max `1000`). | #### Input example ```json { "channels": ["telegram", "durov"], "maxItemsPerChannel": 50 } ```` ### Output One row per message: | Field | Description | |---|---| | `channel` | Channel username the message came from | | `message_id` | Numeric message id within the channel | | `message_url` | Direct link, `https://t.me//` | | `text` | Message text, with line breaks preserved | | `date` | Publish time (ISO 8601, UTC) | | `views` | View count as shown by Telegram (e.g. `1.18M`, `907K`) | | `author` | Post signature / author, when the channel signs posts | | `media_type` | `photo`, `video`, `voice`, `audio`, `document`, `poll`, `sticker`, `location`, `link`, or `none` | | `has_links` | `true` if the message text contains at least one link | | `links` | List of URLs found in the message text | #### Example output row ```json { "channel": "telegram", "message_id": 448, "message_url": "https://t.me/telegram/448", "text": "AI Admins for Groups. Groups can now add AI bots as admins to process join requests with unique features like captcha support.", "date": "2026-06-18T14:35:57+00:00", "views": "1.06M", "author": null, "media_type": "video", "has_links": true, "links": ["https://t.me/telegram/449"] } ``` ### How much does it cost? This actor uses **pay-per-event pricing: $0.005 per message result ($5 per 1,000 messages)**. You're charged only for messages actually returned — no subscription, and no charge for empty runs. New Apify accounts get roughly **1,000 free results per month** on the platform's free tier, so you can pull a mid-size backlog from several channels and test the output before paying anything. Pulling 5,000 messages costs $25; a 20,000-message archive costs $100. ### FAQ #### Do I need an API key, bot token, or phone number? No. The actor reads the **official public web preview** at `t.me/s/` — the same page any browser can open without logging in. There is no Telegram API key, no bot token, no phone-number login, and no session string. That also means there's nothing to get banned: it never authenticates as a user. #### Can it read private channels or group chats? No. It only reads **public channels** that expose a public web preview. Private channels, invite-only channels, and group chats are not accessible this way, by design. If a channel doesn't return public messages, the actor logs a warning and skips it — the run still finishes cleanly for the channels that do work. #### How far back can it go? It paginates backwards through the channel's public history using Telegram's `?before=` parameter, so you can pull well beyond the latest page. In practice you're bounded by `maxItemsPerChannel` and by how much history Telegram serves in the public preview. Very large historical pulls are best split across several runs. #### How fresh is the data? It's fetched **live at run time**, so results reflect what the channel shows right now, including current view counts. Re-run periodically (or on a schedule) to keep a channel archive up to date. #### Why is a channel returning fewer messages than I asked for? Either the channel simply has fewer public messages than your limit, or it reached the start of its public history. Service messages and some media-only edge cases may also be skipped. The actor de-duplicates by message id, so counts reflect unique messages. #### Is scraping this data allowed? The actor reads only **publicly available** data from Telegram's own public web preview — no login, no paywall, no private content. Use the collected data responsibly and in line with Telegram's terms and any laws that apply to your use case (privacy, copyright, etc.). ### Related actors - [Twitter / X Leads Scraper](https://apify.com/flash_scraper/twitter-leads-scraper) — pull public X/Twitter profiles and posts into structured leads. - [Wikipedia Scraper](https://apify.com/flash_scraper/wikipedia-scraper) — extract clean article text and structured data from Wikipedia. Questions or a channel that won't parse? Open an issue on the actor's **Issues** tab and we'll take a look. # Actor input Schema ## `channels` (type: `array`): Public Telegram channel usernames or t.me links (e.g. 'telegram', '@durov', or 'https://t.me/durov'). Only PUBLIC channels work - private/invite-only channels cannot be read. ## `maxItemsPerChannel` (type: `integer`): Maximum number of most-recent messages to pull from each channel. Older messages are fetched by paginating back through the channel history. ## Actor input object example ```json { "channels": [ "telegram", "durov" ], "maxItemsPerChannel": 50 } ``` # Actor output Schema ## `results` (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 '' with your token const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '', }); // Prepare Actor input const input = { "channels": [ "telegram", "durov" ], "maxItemsPerChannel": 50 }; // Run the Actor and wait for it to finish const run = await client.actor("flash_scraper/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 '' with your token. client = ApifyClient("") # Prepare the Actor input run_input = { "channels": [ "telegram", "durov", ], "maxItemsPerChannel": 50, } # Run the Actor and wait for it to finish run = client.actor("flash_scraper/telegram-channel-scraper").call(run_input=run_input) # Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any) print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"]) for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).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" ], "maxItemsPerChannel": 50 }' | apify call flash_scraper/telegram-channel-scraper --silent --output-dataset ``` ## MCP server setup ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "command": "npx", "args": [ "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=flash_scraper/telegram-channel-scraper", "--header", "Authorization: Bearer " ] } } } ``` ## OpenAPI specification ```json { "openapi": "3.0.1", "info": { "title": "Telegram Channel Scraper - Public Channel Messages (No API Key)", "description": "Scrape messages from PUBLIC Telegram channels via the official t.me web preview - no API key, no bot token, no login. Get message text, date, views, author, media type & links as clean rows. Ideal for crypto/news/OSINT monitoring and research. Export CSV/JSON/Excel.", "version": "0.1", "x-build-id": "Na8kg6ib3WwoHHj6G" }, "servers": [ { "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2" } ], "paths": { "/acts/flash_scraper~telegram-channel-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-flash_scraper-telegram-channel-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } }, "/acts/flash_scraper~telegram-channel-scraper/runs": { "post": { "operationId": "runs-sync-flash_scraper-telegram-channel-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK", "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema" } } } } } } }, "/acts/flash_scraper~telegram-channel-scraper/run-sync": { "post": { "operationId": "run-sync-flash_scraper-telegram-channel-scraper", "x-openai-isConsequential": false, "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.", "tags": [ "Run Actor" ], "requestBody": { "required": true, "content": { "application/json": { "schema": { "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema" } } } }, "parameters": [ { "name": "token", "in": "query", "required": true, "schema": { "type": "string" }, "description": "Enter your Apify token here" } ], "responses": { "200": { "description": "OK" } } } } }, "components": { "schemas": { "inputSchema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "channels": { "title": "Channels", "type": "array", "description": "Public Telegram channel usernames or t.me links (e.g. 'telegram', '@durov', or 'https://t.me/durov'). Only PUBLIC channels work - private/invite-only channels cannot be read.", "items": { "type": "string" } }, "maxItemsPerChannel": { "title": "Max messages per channel", "minimum": 1, "maximum": 1000, "type": "integer", "description": "Maximum number of most-recent messages to pull from each channel. Older messages are fetched by paginating back through the channel history.", "default": 100 } } }, "runsResponseSchema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "data": { "type": "object", "properties": { "id": { "type": "string" }, "actId": { "type": "string" }, "userId": { "type": "string" }, "startedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "finishedAt": { "type": "string", "format": "date-time", "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z" }, "status": { "type": "string", "example": "READY" }, "meta": { "type": "object", "properties": { "origin": { "type": "string", "example": "API" }, "userAgent": { "type": "string" } } }, "stats": { "type": "object", "properties": { "inputBodyLen": { "type": "integer", "example": 2000 }, "rebootCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "restartCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "resurrectCount": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "computeUnits": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "options": { "type": "object", "properties": { "build": { "type": "string", "example": "latest" }, "timeoutSecs": { "type": "integer", "example": 300 }, "memoryMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 1024 }, "diskMbytes": { "type": "integer", "example": 2048 } } }, "buildId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultKeyValueStoreId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultDatasetId": { "type": "string" }, "defaultRequestQueueId": { "type": "string" }, "buildNumber": { "type": "string", "example": "1.0.0" }, "containerUrl": { "type": "string" }, "usage": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 1 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } }, "usageTotalUsd": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "usageUsd": { "type": "object", "properties": { "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATASET_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": { "type": "number", "example": 0.00005 }, "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 }, "PROXY_SERPS": { "type": "integer", "example": 0 } } } } } } } } } } ```