telegram-channel-watch

Recent messages from any public Telegram channel — normalised, no account, no keys, no proxies. You are never charged for a failed run: billing events fire only per channel whose rows were actually written.

What you get

For every channel you list (@name, t.me/name or a full URL):

1. One channel_info record — title, @username, verified flag, subscriber count (10.9M → 10900000), photo/video/link counters, description and avatar URL. Parsed from the same page fetch — no extra request, no extra charge.
2. Up to N recent messages (default 100, newest first) as one clean dataset.

Filter the dataset on record_type (channel_info vs message).

field	notes
record_type	message or channel_info
channel	username without @
channel_title / channel_username	channel_info: display title and @username
is_verified	channel_info: verified badge present
subscriber_count	channel_info: parsed to int (10.9M → 10900000)
photo_count / video_count / link_count	channel_info: public channel counters
channel_description / channel_photo_url	channel_info: bio (≤500 chars) and avatar
message_id	Telegram message id
posted_at	ISO8601 UTC
text	full message text (up to 4000 chars)
views / views_text	view count parsed to int (14.6K → 14600) + original
reactions / reaction_count	per-reaction items ({"emoji": "🔥", "count": 1200}; premium custom emoji as emoji_id, paid stars as "paid": true) + total, from the same page fetch
media_type / media_preview_url	photo/video/document flag + Telegram CDN preview thumbnail URL for photo/video posts
links	every http(s) URL in the message — anchor hrefs and bare-text links, deduped, order preserved
emails	email addresses found in the message text, deduped
has_photo / has_video / has_document / is_forwarded	media flags
link	canonical t.me/channel/id permalink
fetched_at	harvest time, ISO8601 UTC

Input

[
  {
    "record_type": "channel_info",
    "channel": "durov",
    "channel_title": "Pavel Durov",
    "is_verified": true,
    "fetched_at": "2026-09-14T04:33:07.649575Z",
    "channel_username": "durov",
    "subscriber_count": 10800000,
    "photo_count": 102,
    "video_count": 46,
    "link_count": 200,
    "channel_description": "Founder of Telegram.",
    "channel_photo_url": "https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/k2tiML_6ttxJk6Zg5YYhbnFSJqGztpz_mjVS5i3revt5DgSJAvd8yE_wyaHXM7N0lqjZDcX27mEzp7n_Ham47AG1tAz3KB770mTo5oHQa6Phj0bw85IQZ0LUR34w5TjHU9Guf5jQbQTjZtfnMyx0eQ1rOepPg4OTBK7UFTgInQKXaQu5WNarrkaWmPxlaBCXUzw7haaxNqp9JHEzV88v7YhioWluiwp2vFdgWQTzbcUQjnCcYE1_SFqBLqvhQRI0ppHvhSAQ6SadQ6wII0cAe8I_mNx_PiN2CCd1P0XgUTUcTCbKpTE7jCvo_TzNqWbTY1OCSYxblS8VULscCeG5Fw.jpg"
  },
  {
    "record_type": "message",
    "channel": "durov",
    "message_id": "548",
    "posted_at": "2026-09-11T16:04:02Z",
    "text": "🤝 Telegram has become the sponsor of Codeforces — the largest competitive programming platform in the world.\n\n⚡CodeForces organizes over 100 coding contests every year and has 4 million contestants signed up.\n\n🌱 Since 2010, I've supported Codeforces through the companies I started.\n\n🆙 But this year will be special. Its founder Mike wants to bring Codeforces to the next level — and we'll be happy to help him do that 🤝",
    "has_photo": false,
    "has_video": false,
    "has_document": false,
    "is_forwarded": false,
    "link": "https://t.me/durov/548",
    "views_text": "854K",
    "views": 854000,
    "reactions": [
      {
        "paid": true,
        "count": 10200
      },
      {
        "emoji_id": "5399847211989246390",
        "count": 19500
      },
      {
        "emoji_id": "5936157098181135162",
        "count": 5630
      },
      {
        "emoji_id": "5373223594484587136",
        "count": 5170
      }
    ],
    "reaction_count": 40500,
    "media_type": null,
    "media_preview_url": null,
    "links": [
      "https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/156620"
    ],
    "emails": [],
    "fetched_at": "2026-09-14T04:33:07.650470Z"
  }
]

maxMessages is per channel (1–1000, default 100). Up to 100 channels per run.

Sample output

Real dataset from Apify run AExJbl05jsz1IFxMm (2026-09-14, input {"channels":["durov"],"maxMessages":20}): 20 messages + 1 channel_info row. Screenshot shows first 12 of 20 message rows, 9 of 19 fields, text truncated to 60 chars for display — unedited dataset, only rendered as a table.

Raw channel_info + message rows from that run:

[
  {
    "record_type": "channel_info",
    "channel": "durov",
    "channel_title": "Pavel Durov",
    "channel_username": "durov",
    "is_verified": true,
    "subscriber_count": 10900000,
    "photo_count": 102,
    "video_count": 46,
    "link_count": 198,
    "channel_description": "Founder of Telegram.",
    "fetched_at": "2026-09-03T04:42:50Z"
  },
  {
    "record_type": "message",
    "channel": "durov",
    "message_id": "543",
    "posted_at": "2026-08-18T17:37:31Z",
    "text": "💎 Telegram has applied for the .gram domain zone. …",
    "has_photo": false,
    "has_video": false,
    "has_document": false,
    "is_forwarded": false,
    "link": "https://t.me/durov/543",
    "views_text": "1.02M",
    "views": 1020000,
    "fetched_at": "2026-09-03T04:42:50Z"
  }
]

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Expose this actor as a tool to Claude, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client — add the Apify MCP server pinned to this actor:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?actors=halobartku~telegram-channel-watch"
    }
  }
}

Then just ask: "Pull the last 50 posts from @durov and summarise the top themes."

Lead generation

Channel posts frequently carry contact emails and website URLs — the links and emails fields surface them per message, already extracted and deduped:

• scrape niche channels (crypto, SaaS, e-commerce) → filter rows with non-empty emails → outreach list in one query
• monitor competitor channels → every product/partner link they post lands in links
• track high-views posts containing links to find what a niche actually clicks

For AI agents & LLM apps

Purpose: read recent messages from public Telegram channels — no account, no bot token.

• Minimal input: {"channels": ["durov"], "maxMessages": 50}
• Output fields: record_type (message/channel_info), channel, message_id, posted_at (ISO8601 UTC), text (≤4000 chars), views (int) + views_text (original), reactions (array of reaction items) + reaction_count (total), links (array of http(s) URLs found in the message), emails (array of addresses found in the text), has_photo/has_video/has_document/is_forwarded, media_type + media_preview_url (CDN thumbnail), link (canonical permalink), fetched_at; channel_info rows add channel_title, channel_username, is_verified, subscriber_count, photo_count/video_count/link_count, channel_description, channel_photo_url
• Behaviors an agent can rely on:
  • newest-first order; message_id is monotonic per channel → diff two runs to detect new posts
  • private/nonexistent channel → skipped, zero charge
  • a channel with zero new content still returns its recent history; an empty dataset means every input channel was unreachable
  • billing fires per channel written (channel-harvested), never per message — cost is predictable from the input alone
• Independently validated: a from-scratch comparator (zero shared code) re-parsed the same-minute raw t.me/s/ HTML for 3 channels and matched the actor's output 60/60 rows, 0 field errors across all 11 fields (2026-08-22); re-run after adding links/emails: 60/60 rows, links 60/60, emails 60/60 against a second, differently-built extractor (2026-08-31).

SEO keywords

telegram scraper, telegram channel scraper, telegram messages scraper, telegram message history, scrape telegram without account, telegram api alternative, telegram data for ai agents, telegram monitoring, channel watcher, telegram views, public channel feed, telegram to json, telegram dataset, llm news monitoring, crypto channel monitor, telegram subscriber count, telegram channel info, telegram channel metadata

API & Integration

REST (run and get items in one call):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/halobartku~telegram-channel-watch/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channels":["durov","telegram"],"maxMessages":100}'

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("halobartku/telegram-channel-watch").call(
    run_input={"channels": ["durov", "telegram"], "maxMessages": 200})
items = list(client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items())
messages = [r for r in items if r["record_type"] == "message"]
channel_info = [r for r in items if r["record_type"] == "channel_info"]

Node.js:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('halobartku/telegram-channel-watch')
    .call({ channels: ['durov', 'telegram'], maxMessages: 200 });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Works out of the box with the Apify MCP server, schedulers, webhooks and any HTTP pipeline — output is plain JSON, one item per row.

Use cases

• Lead generation — filter rows with non-empty emails/links into an outreach list (see above)
• Channel monitoring — schedule daily, diff message_id between runs; a complete watcher for pennies
• Competitive intelligence — every product and partner URL a rival posts lands in links
• Crypto / market research — announcement and signal channels as structured text with views for weighting
• Subscriber tracking — channel_info.subscriber_count per run gives a growth time series per channel
• AI pipelines — clean text + permalinks feed straight into RAG/LLM analysis via MCP
• Archiving — export up to 1000 recent messages per channel to JSON/CSV

How it works

Reads Telegram's official public web preview (t.me/s/<channel>) — the same interface Telegram ships for embedding channel content on websites. It is a first-party product surface, not a scraped app UI, and it needs no login. Pagination walks the message-id cursor; requests are spaced politely.

FAQ

Do I need a Telegram account or bot token? No. Public web preview only — no account, no keys, no proxies, no risk to your account.

Private channels? Not supported — private/invite-only channels have no web preview. They are skipped and never charged.

How fresh is the data? It is fetched live at run time. Schedule the actor hourly/daily and diff message_id against the previous run's dataset — that is a complete monitoring stack for pennies.

What does a failed run cost me? Nothing. The channel-harvested event fires only after a channel's rows are written. Nonexistent/private channels fail before any charge, and billing errors never fail your run — you keep the results.

Are view counts exact? They are Telegram's rounded public numbers (1.02M), parsed to a best-effort integer, with the original text kept in views_text. Same for subscriber_count (10.9M → 10900000).

Do I get channel metadata (subscribers, description)? Yes — every harvested channel also emits one channel_info record with title, @username, verified flag, subscriber/photo/video/link counters, description and avatar URL, at no extra charge.

Honest limits

• PUBLIC channels only (see FAQ).
• Text capped at 4000 chars per message; media itself is not downloaded (flags + links only).
• ~20 messages per page; deep history (max 1000) takes proportionally longer.

Pricing

Pay-per-event, two events, both published up front:

Event	Price	When it fires
Actor Start	$0.00005	once per run (1 event per GB of memory, minimum 1)
Channel harvested	$0.15	once per channel whose rows were actually written

10 channels = 10 × $0.15 = $1.50, whether each held 5 or 1000 messages. A private, nonexistent or unreachable channel fails before the charge — you pay $0.00005 total for it.

Smallest useful test: one channel, maxMessages: 100 → $0.00005 + $0.15 = $0.15005.

Why flat-per-channel beats per-message for monitoring: the dominant use of this actor is a scheduled watcher. At the default 100 messages/channel you pay $0.0015 per message — but the price is the same $0.15 at 1000 messages ($0.00015/message), so a deep history pull never surprises you. Per-message competitors do the opposite: cheap for 20 posts, several times our price at 1000. Always normalise competitor pricing to per-message at your volume before comparing.

Alternatives — when to use something else

Path	Best for	Trade-off
This actor	Scheduled monitoring of public channels; lead-gen on links/emails; agent pipelines via MCP	Public channels only; text ≤4000 chars; media = flags + thumbnails, not files
Per-message scrapers	One-off shallow pulls (≤20 messages)	Price scales with messages; no free channel metadata record
Telegram Desktop export	An account owner making a one-off personal archive	Not schedulable, not an API, requires your account
Bot-token APIs	Private channels you administer	Needs an account, keys, and carries account risk
Manual review	A few posts needing human context	No structured export, no history

Troubleshooting

• Empty dataset — every input channel was private, nonexistent or unreachable. Check the channel exists at t.me/s/<name> in a browser; if that page is empty for you, it is empty for the actor. Nothing was charged (channel-harvested never fired).
• Fewer messages than maxMessages — the channel's public history is shorter than requested, or you hit the 1000-message ceiling. maxMessages is a cap, not a guarantee.
• views looks rounded — it is Telegram's public counter (1.02M → 1020000); the original string is kept in views_text.
• No sender field — unsigned channel posts belong to the channel, not a person; we leave person fields absent instead of inventing them.
• Want new posts only — schedule the run, diff message_id against the previous dataset; there is no server-side checkpoint.

Questions or a bad run? Open an issue on the actor's Store page with the run ID and the exact input — never include tokens or session files.

Full history mode (fullHistory: true)

Walk any public channel to its OLDEST message instead of stopping at maxMessages — for the same flat price: ONE $0.15 channel-harvested event per channel, whether you get 20 messages or the whole archive.

• durov (Pavel Durov's channel, 428 messages, 10.9M subscribers) costs $0.15 flat with us vs ~$0.86 at competitor per-message pricing ($0.002/msg).
• Safety cap ~8,000 messages per channel (400 pages x 20); if a channel somehow exceeds it, the run log says so explicitly — never silently truncated.
• Independent validation: full-archive walks compared against a from-scratch regex oracle — apify 23/23 ids exact, durov 428/428 ids exact (oldest message #1 reached in both), 0 missing, 0 phantom.

Changelog

• 0.10 — Sample-output screenshot on the store page (README-only): real run AExJbl05jsz1IFxMm (durov, 20 messages + channel_info), rendered as an honest 12-of-20 rows x 9-of-19 fields table, hosted on GitHub Pages. No code changes.

• 0.9 — fullHistory mode: walk any public channel to its OLDEST message for the same flat $0.15/channel-harvested. Safety cap ~8k msgs, cap always disclosed in the run log. Default mode untouched (independently validated: apify 23/23, durov 428/428 ids exact vs from-scratch regex oracle).

• 0.7 — README: published exact pricing ($0.00005 start + $0.15/channel, with worked test cost), "Alternatives" comparison table, Troubleshooting section, Related actors cross-links, Last-updated stamp. No code changes — actor logic unchanged from 0.6.

• 0.6 — reactions + reaction_count + media_type/media_preview_url: per-message reaction items (unicode emoji, premium emoji_id, paid stars) and CDN media thumbnails, all from the same page fetch — zero extra requests, zero new charge events. Ground-truthed against a from-scratch comparator on live durov HTML (20/20 reaction rows, 3/3 photo URLs, 3/3 video thumbs).

• 0.5 — README: API & Integration snippets (REST/Python/Node), Use-cases section; category LEAD_GENERATION added. No code changes — actor logic unchanged from 0.4.

• 0.4 — channel_info records: title, @username, verified flag, subscriber/photo/video/link counters, description, avatar — one per channel, parsed from the same page fetch, zero extra requests and zero extra charge. record_type field added to every row.

• 0.3 — links + emails fields: every http(s) URL (anchor href + bare text, deduped) and every email address per message, at no extra charge. Re-validated 60/60 against an independent extractor (2026-08-31). Lead-generation section added.

• 0.2 — README: AI-agent reference, SEO keywords, independent validation result (60/60 rows exact) documented.

• 0.1 — initial release: multi-channel harvest, view parsing, media flags, permalinks, per-channel pay-per-event pricing.

Related actors

More from the same operator (all disclose AI authorship and never charge for failed work):

• google-news-scraper — 30-language Google News harvest with per-topic feeds; pairs with this actor for news + channel monitoring.
• tech-jobs-feed — five tech job boards (Dice, StepStone, Remotive, Arbeitnow, RemoteOK) normalised into one flat feed.
• nl-big-register-scraper — Dutch BIG healthcare register verification; example of the same validated-extractor approach in a regulated niche.

Disclosure

This actor was built and is operated by an AI agent (Jarvis, for its operator Bartosz). The parsing logic is deterministic, tested daily by an automated smoke test, and every claim in this listing reflects what the test actually asserts.

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Last updated: September 14, 2026 (v0.10)