# Telegram Channel Scraper — No API, No Login (`javiervinus/telegram-channel-scraper`) Actor

Scrape posts from public Telegram channels: text, views, dates, media, forwards and link previews. Keyword filtering and date limits built in. No Telegram API keys or account needed.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/javiervinus/telegram-channel-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Javier Vinueza](https://apify.com/javiervinus) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 post scrapeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Telegram Channel Scraper — No API, No Login

Scrape posts from any **public Telegram channel** in seconds. No Telegram API keys, no phone number, no account, no MTProto setup — this Actor reads the official public web preview (`t.me/s/...`), so you just paste channel names and get clean, structured JSON back.

### What does it do?

Give it one or more public channels and it collects the latest posts (newest first) with:

- ✅ Full **post text** and direct **post URL**
- ✅ **Publication date** (ISO 8601) and **view count** (parsed to a number: `1.68M` → `1680000`)
- ✅ **Forwarded-from** attribution (channel name + link)
- ✅ **Media flags**: photo URLs, video presence + thumbnail, document names, poll questions
- ✅ **Link previews** (URL, title, description) and all **outbound links** in the text
- ✅ Built-in **keyword filter** (case-insensitive) — pay only for posts that match
- ✅ **Date limit** (`postedAfter`) — the crawl stops paginating at older posts, keeping runs fast and cheap

### Use cases

- **Brand & topic monitoring** — track mentions of your product, competitors, or keywords across news and community channels.
- **Crypto / financial signals** — collect posts from trading and announcement channels into a dataset your pipeline (or AI agent) can consume.
- **OSINT & research** — archive public channels with dates, views, and forward provenance.
- **News aggregation** — turn Telegram channels into a structured feed for your app, dashboard, or newsletter.
- **AI agents (MCP)** — this Actor works out of the box as an MCP tool via the Apify MCP server, so LLM agents can query Telegram channels on demand.

### Input

| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `channels` | array | Usernames or URLs: `durov`, `@durov`, `https://t.me/durov` |
| `maxPostsPerChannel` | integer | Max posts per channel, newest first (default `100`) |
| `keywords` | array | Keep only posts containing at least one keyword (optional) |
| `postedAfter` | date | Keep only posts on/after this date; stops pagination early (optional) |
| `proxyConfiguration` | object | Apify Proxy settings (optional) |

### Output example

```json
{
    "channel": "telegram",
    "id": 431,
    "url": "https://t.me/telegram/431",
    "date": "2026-03-02T17:33:52+00:00",
    "text": "Telegram now supports...",
    "views": 1680000,
    "forwardedFrom": null,
    "media": {
        "photos": ["https://cdn4.telesco.pe/file/..."],
        "hasVideo": false,
        "videoThumb": null,
        "document": null,
        "poll": null
    },
    "linkPreview": {
        "url": "https://telegram.org/blog/...",
        "title": "Telegram Blog",
        "description": "..."
    },
    "links": ["https://telegram.org/blog/..."],
    "scrapedAt": "2026-07-10T15:04:05.000Z"
}
```

### Limitations (please read)

- Only **public channels with a web preview** work. Private channels, private groups, and channels whose owners disabled the preview cannot be scraped — the Actor logs a clear warning for those.
- The web preview does not expose comments/replies or subscriber-only content.
- Reactions are not included in the public preview markup.

### Pricing

This Actor uses **pay-per-event** pricing: you are charged a small fee per scraped post that is actually delivered to your dataset. Posts filtered out by your keywords or date limit are **not** charged. Set a maximum budget on any run with the standard Apify charge limit.

### Support

Found a bug or need a field that is missing? Open an issue on the Actor's **Issues** tab — issues are typically answered within 24 hours.

# Actor input Schema

## `channels` (type: `array`):

Public channel usernames or URLs. Accepted formats: <code>durov</code>, <code>@durov</code>, <code>https://t.me/durov</code>, <code>https://t.me/s/durov</code>.

## `maxPostsPerChannel` (type: `integer`):

Stop after collecting this many posts per channel, counting from the newest.

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Only keep posts whose text contains at least one of these words or phrases (case-insensitive). Leave empty to keep every post.

## `postedAfter` (type: `string`):

Only keep posts published on or after this date (UTC). The crawl stops paginating once older posts are reached, which keeps runs fast and cheap.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Proxy to use. Telegram's public preview is tolerant, but enable Apify Proxy if you scrape many channels frequently.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channels": [
    "telegram"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# 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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "channels": [
        "telegram"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("javiervinus/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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "channels": ["telegram"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("javiervinus/telegram-channel-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).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"
  ]
}' |
apify call javiervinus/telegram-channel-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,javiervinus/telegram-channel-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/X7oqBUWH2kWaoktHn/builds/lwyM0BdjNsxYtadNu/openapi.json