# Telegram Channel Scraper (Posts, Views, Media, Search) (`pagecraft/telegram-channel-scraper`) Actor

Scrape posts from any public Telegram channel: text, date, views, reactions, links, photos, videos, forwards and replies, plus subscribers. Search inside channels, date and view filters. No login, no API key, no phone number.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/pagecraft/telegram-channel-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Pagecraft Tools](https://apify.com/pagecraft) (community)
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.35 / 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: Posts, Views, Reactions and Media from Public Channels

Scrape **posts from any public Telegram channel**: text, date, **views**, **reactions**, links, hashtags, photos, videos, documents, polls, forwards and replies, plus the channel's **subscriber count** and description. **Search inside channels** with Telegram's own search. No login, no API key, no phone number, no Telegram account.

### What it does

- Reads a channel's public web preview, newest posts first, page after page until your limit.
- One **channel row**: title, username, description, subscribers, photo, link and media counts.
- One **row per post**: text (line breaks kept), date, views, reactions (emoji and count), hashtags, links, photo URLs, video count, documents, polls, link previews, "forwarded from", "reply to" and "edited".
- **Search inside channels**: e.g. find every post mentioning `bitcoin` or `launch`.
- Filters: **posts since** a date (stops reading once it reaches older posts), **minimum views**, **skip media-only posts**.
- Many channels in one run.

### Who it's for

- **Market and crypto research**: track announcement channels, signals and sentiment.
- **News monitoring and OSINT**: follow official and news channels, with views as a reach signal.
- **Brand and competitor monitoring**: find mentions with in-channel search.
- **Data and AI teams**: clean post text and metadata for summaries, topic models and alerts.

### Input

| Field | What to enter |
| --- | --- |
| Public channels | `@telegram`, `durov` or `https://t.me/telegram` |
| Maximum posts per channel | Default 200 |
| Search inside the channels | Optional words |
| Posts since | Optional date |
| Minimum views | Optional |
| Skip posts without text | Optional |

```json
{ "channels": ["@telegram", "@durov"], "postsSince": "2026-10-01", "maxPostsPerChannel": 1000 }
```

### Output

```json
{
  "type": "post", "channel": "telegram", "channelTitle": "Telegram News", "subscribers": 9200000,
  "postId": 452, "url": "https://t.me/telegram/452", "date": "2026-10-31T16:08:31+00:00",
  "text": "Guest AI bots, bot-to-bot chats and more...", "views": 1640000,
  "reactions": [{ "emoji": "👍", "count": 15000 }], "reactionCount": 15000,
  "hashtags": [], "links": ["https://telegram.org/blog/..."], "photoUrls": [], "videoCount": 1,
  "forwardedFrom": null, "replyToUrl": null, "edited": false,
  "linkPreview": { "siteName": "Telegram", "title": "Guest AI Bots...", "url": "https://telegram.org/blog/..." }
}
```

### Pricing

| Event | When it is charged | Price per 1,000 (Free / Bronze / Silver / Gold plan) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Channel checked | Each channel (and each search inside a channel): the channel row and reading its pages, once per started 30 seconds or 3 MB (about 400 posts). Also charged when a channel cannot be read. | $2 on every plan |
| Post scraped | Each post returned in the dataset. | $0.50 / $0.45 / $0.40 / $0.35 |

Example: 5 channels with 200 posts each costs about 5 × $0.002 + 1,000 × $0.0005 = $0.51 on the Free plan.

Set a **maximum cost per run** in Apify and the scraper stops cleanly when it is reached.

### Notes and limits

- Only **public channels** that show a web preview at `t.me/s/<name>` can be read. Private channels, groups, users and bots cannot.
- Views and reaction counts are rounded by Telegram (e.g. 2.29M).
- Photo links come from Telegram's servers and may expire after some time; download them soon if you need copies.
- Comments under posts (discussion groups) are not included.

### More Pagecraft tools

- [Google News Scraper](https://apify.com/pagecraft/google-news-scraper): news headlines for any keyword and country.
- [Hacker News Scraper](https://apify.com/pagecraft/hacker-news-scraper): stories and comments from Hacker News.
- [RSS Feed Reader](https://apify.com/pagecraft/rss-feed-reader): any RSS, Atom or JSON feed as clean data.

# Actor input Schema

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

One per line: @channelname, channelname or https://t.me/channelname. Only public channels with a web preview can be read.

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

Newest first. Stop after this many posts for each channel (and each search).

## `searchTerms` (type: `array`):

Optional: words to search for with Telegram's own channel search. Each term is searched in every channel.

## `postsSince` (type: `string`):

Optional: only posts on or after this date. Reading stops once older posts are reached.

## `minViews` (type: `integer`):

Optional: skip posts with fewer views.

## `skipPostsWithoutText` (type: `boolean`):

Skip media-only posts.

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

Optional. Residential proxies are not supported.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channels": [
    "@telegram"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 40,
  "minViews": 0,
  "skipPostsWithoutText": false
}
```

# 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"
    ],
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 40
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("pagecraft/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"],
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 40,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("pagecraft/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"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 40
}' |
apify call pagecraft/telegram-channel-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,pagecraft/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/DoF9JwFu87EQBVKhO/builds/5maid98teyR2HOlu7/openapi.json