Telegram Channel Scraper — Messages & Views, No Login

Give it public Telegram channels, get back their latest posts: text, date, views, reactions, photos, links and hashtags, plus the channel's title, subscriber count and verified badge. No Telegram account, phone number or API key. One flat row per message, every field always present, never null. Built for monitoring, research, pipelines and AI agents.

$1 per 1,000 messages, down to $0.50 on higher Apify plans. Channels that fail or have no matching messages are free.

Why this one

• No account, no ban risk. It reads Telegram's own public web preview (t.me/s/<channel>), the page anyone can open in a browser. Nothing logs in, so there is no session to get banned.
• Keyword search built in. searchKeyword uses Telegram's in-channel search, so a brand or ticker mention across 50 channels is one run.
• Engagement in every row. Views, reactions (including Telegram Stars) and the channel's subscriber count sit next to each message, ready for ranking.
• One row for every channel you send. A private channel, a user, a typo or a channel with no matching posts still comes back as a row with a machine-readable subStatus, free.
• Fast and light. Measured on Apify: 100 messages from @telegram in 5 seconds at 256 MB, no proxy.

Input

Field	Default	What it does
channels	—	Public channels: @name, name, t.me/name or t.me/s/name. Duplicates are dropped. Required.
maxMessagesPerChannel	100	Newest messages per channel (max 10,000).
searchKeyword	—	Only messages containing this word or phrase.
oldestDate	—	Stop at messages older than this date (YYYY-MM-DD).

{
  "channels": ["@telegram", "https://t.me/durov"],
  "maxMessagesPerChannel": 50,
  "searchKeyword": "update"
}

Output

One row per message, newest first within each channel. A real row (shortened):

{
  "inputIndex": 0,
  "input": "@telegram",
  "status": "ok",
  "subStatus": "message",
  "error": "",
  "channelTitle": "Telegram News",
  "channelUsername": "telegram",
  "channelDescription": "The official Telegram on Telegram. Much recursion. Very Telegram. Wow.",
  "channelVerified": true,
  "channelSubscribers": 9230000,
  "channelAvatarUrl": "https://cdn1.telesco.pe/file/…jpg",
  "channel": "telegram",
  "messageId": 458,
  "url": "https://t.me/telegram/458",
  "date": "2026-08-26T19:12:04+00:00",
  "text": "Placeholders for App Updates. If a user with an outdated app encounters a new feature, they can now instantly tap to download the latest upd…",
  "views": 1180000,
  "author": "",
  "edited": false,
  "isForwarded": false, "forwardedFrom": "", "forwardedFromUrl": "",
  "replyToUrl": "",
  "mediaType": "photo",
  "photoUrls": ["https://cdn1.telesco.pe/file/…jpg"],
  "hasVideo": false,
  "linkPreviewUrl": "", "linkPreviewTitle": "",
  "links": ["https://t.me/telegram/455", "https://t.me/telegram/456"],
  "hashtags": [],
  "reactions": [],
  "reactionsTotal": 0,
  "paidStars": 0
}

Strings are "" when absent, numbers 0, arrays []. No field is ever null or missing. views and channelSubscribers are Telegram's rounded figures (7M = 7,000,000).

Status

status	subStatus	Charged
ok	message	yes, per message
no_messages	no_messages: the channel exists but nothing matched the keyword or date range; channel fields are filled	free
failed	not_found, no_public_preview (private channel, group, user or bot), invalid_input (invite links), http_<code>, network_error, cost_limit_reached	free

Pricing

Event	Price	When
message	$0.0010 (free plan), $0.0008 Bronze, $0.0006 Silver, $0.0005 Gold	each message returned

No other charges besides Apify's minimum start fee ($0.00005 per run). A run stops when your maximum cost per run is reached and says so in the status message.

What it does not do

• Public channels only. Telegram shows a web preview only for public channels with preview enabled. Private channels, groups, chats and users need a logged-in account, which this actor deliberately does not use.
• No comments or member lists, and no media download: photos are URLs on Telegram's CDN.
• Approximate big numbers. Views and subscribers are rounded by Telegram itself (1.18M, 9.23M).
• Custom emoji reactions come back as Telegram's emoji id when the preview has no character for them.

Use it from AI agents (MCP)

This Actor is a tool on the Apify MCP server, so Claude, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client can call it to read a Telegram channel. Load only this tool: a short tool list keeps the agent from picking the wrong one.

Recommended: hosted server, OAuth sign-in (nothing secret on disk).

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "telegram-channels": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=sumitr_mardy/telegram-channel-scraper"
    }
  }
}

With an API token instead:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "telegram-channels": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=sumitr_mardy/telegram-channel-scraper",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Local server (stdio):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "telegram-channels": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@apify/actors-mcp-server@latest", "--tools", "sumitr_mardy/telegram-channel-scraper"],
      "env": { "APIFY_TOKEN": "YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Get a token at Apify Console → API & Integrations, and never commit it.

Tips for agents:

• "What did this channel post this week?": set oldestDate and a high maxMessagesPerChannel.
• "Is anyone talking about X on Telegram?": list the channels and set searchKeyword.
• Check status: no_messages means the channel exists but nothing matched, which is an answer.

Use it from code

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("sumitr_mardy/telegram-channel-scraper").call(run_input={
    "channels": ["@telegram"],
    "maxMessagesPerChannel": 20,
})
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["date"], row["views"], row["text"][:80])

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/sumitr_mardy~telegram-channel-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channels": ["@telegram"], "maxMessagesPerChannel": 20}'

This actor is not affiliated with or endorsed by Telegram.