# Telegram Channel Scraper — Posts, Views & Subscribers (`northbell/telegram-channel-scraper`) Actor

Scrape public Telegram channels without a login or phone number: channel title, subscribers and description, and every post with date, text, views, photos, video, links and hashtags. Search inside a channel, filter by date, and get only new posts since your last run.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/northbell/telegram-channel-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Northbell](https://apify.com/northbell) (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 $0.40 / 1,000 posts

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 — Posts, Views & Subscribers

Read **public Telegram channels** without a Telegram account, login or phone number. For each channel you get its **title, subscriber count, description and verified badge**, and for each post its **date, text, views, photos, video, links and hashtags**. Search inside a channel, keep only recent posts, and schedule it with *Only new posts* to turn any channel into a feed.

### What you get

| Row | Fields |
|---|---|
| `channel` (free) | `title`, `username`, `description`, `verified`, `subscribers`, `photos`, `videos`, `files`, `links`, `url` |
| `post` | `postId`, `url`, `postedAt`, `text`, `views`, `photos`, `hasVideo`, `hasDocument`, `hasPoll`, `links`, `hashtags`, `edited`, `isForwarded`, `isNewSinceLastRun` |

For forwarded posts and signed posts, the name of the original sender is **not** collected — only that the post was forwarded.

### Use it for

- **News and market monitoring** — every post from crypto, trading, tech or news channels into a sheet, Slack or a database
- **Media research** — views per post and subscriber counts across channels
- **AI pipelines** — clean post text with links and hashtags for summaries and alerts

### Input

```json
{ "channels": ["https://t.me/telegram", "@durov"], "maxPostsPerChannel": 100, "onlyNew": true }
```

Measured on October 7, 2026: 2 channels, 90 posts in 18 seconds. Data comes from Telegram's public web preview (t.me/s/…), which shows 20 posts per page. Channels that turned the preview off, private channels and groups cannot be read.

### Pricing

**$0.50 per 1,000 posts**, plus $0.01 per run. Channel rows and error rows are free. The $0.01 run-start fee is the one charge every run pays, even one that returns nothing.

### For AI agents

`{"channels": ["t.me/telegram"], "maxPostsPerChannel": 10}` returns the channel and its 10 newest posts. Rows have `type`: `channel`, `post` or `error`.

# Actor input Schema

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

Public channels as t.me/<name> or @name. Private groups and invite links cannot be read.

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

Newest first.

## `search` (type: `string`):

Only posts matching this word or phrase (Telegram's own channel search).

## `postedWithinDays` (type: `integer`):

Keep only posts from the last this many days. Leave empty to keep every post that was read.

## `onlyNew` (type: `boolean`):

From the second run on, return only posts newer than the newest one returned before. Schedule it for a channel feed.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channels": [
    "https://t.me/telegram"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 40,
  "onlyNew": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `posts` (type: `string`):

Posts with date, text, views and media.

## `channels` (type: `string`):

Channel title, subscribers and 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": [
        "https://t.me/telegram"
    ],
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 40
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("northbell/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": ["https://t.me/telegram"],
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 40,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("northbell/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": [
    "https://t.me/telegram"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 40
}' |
apify call northbell/telegram-channel-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,northbell/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/fHxmOgE6hVbDqTzjE/builds/KVJSZ3Hava5WjUsIH/openapi.json