Telegram Channel Scraper

Read public Telegram channels without a login, a bot token or a phone number — post text, view counts, media, links and dates, plus the channel's own profile.

Telegram publishes a web preview for every public channel. This Actor reads it and pages backwards through the history.

Why use this Telegram Channel Scraper?

Typical scrapers	This Actor
Need a bot token, a phone number or a logged-in session	Nothing to connect — reads the public web preview of each channel
Return the latest page of posts only	Pages back through the history up to your limit or a cut-off date
Post text only	Text, view counts, photos and videos, link previews, outlinks, forwards, replies and author signature
Filter after you have paid for every row	searchTerms, minViews, onlyPostsWithLinks and postedAfter run before you are charged
Separate tool for channel info	mode: both adds one profile row per channel: title, description, subscribers, counts
Re-download everything to see what is new	onlyNewPosts monitoring mode returns only posts published since the last run

How to use

1. Sign up for Apify — the free plan's monthly credit is enough to try this Actor.
2. Open Telegram Channel Scraper, fill in the input (the form is pre-filled with a working example) and click Start.
3. Watch results stream into the dataset table while the run is going.
4. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML or RSS — or pull the results from your own code with the Apify API.

What can you do with Telegram channels data?

• Track news and announcement channels — many companies and projects post there first.
• Watch what a channel promotes — onlyPostsWithLinks keeps only posts that link somewhere.
• Find what resonates — every post carries its view count.
• Archive a channel — page back through the history up to your limit.

How to scrape Telegram channels

Field	What it does
channels	Usernames or links: durov, @telegram, https://t.me/bloomberg
mode	Posts, channel profile, or both
maxPostsPerChannel	How far back to page
postedAfter	Stop once posts get older than this date
searchTerms	Only posts containing these words
minViews	Only posts above a view count
onlyPostsWithLinks	Only posts that link out
onlyNewPosts	Monitoring mode — only posts added since the last run

Input reference

Every option at a glance. A minimal input that works as-is:

{
  "channels": [
    "durov",
    "telegram"
  ],
  "mode": "posts",
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 50,
  "maxResults": 1000
}

All fields:

• channels (Public channels) — Channel usernames or links — “durov”, “@telegram”, “https://t.me/bloomberg”. Public channels only; private ones have no web preview.
• mode (What to return) — Posts, the channel profile, or both. Options: posts, channels (Channel details only), both (Channel details + posts); default "posts".
• maxPostsPerChannel (Max posts per channel) — Older posts are loaded page by page until this many are collected. Default 50.
• postedAfter (Only posts after) — YYYY-MM-DD. Paging stops once it goes past this date.
• searchTerms (Only posts containing) — Keep only posts whose text contains one of these words.
• minViews (Min views) — Keep only posts with at least this many views.
• onlyPostsWithLinks (Only posts with links) — Keep only posts that link somewhere — useful for tracking what a channel promotes. Default false.
• onlyNewPosts (Only posts that are new) — Monitoring mode. Remembers the posts already returned for each channel and returns only newer ones. Run it on a schedule and you pay only for new posts. Default false.
• maxResults (Max results) — Total limit across all channels. Default 1000.
• proxy (Proxy) — Apify Proxy is used as a fallback when a direct request is blocked.

What the Telegram channels output looks like

One row per post (and one per channel in both mode):

{
  "type": "post",
  "channel": "durov",
  "messageId": 548,
  "url": "https://t.me/durov/548",
  "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 m…",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-11T16:04:02+00:00",
  "views": 1320000,
  "forwardedFrom": null,
  "replyToUrl": null,
  "hasPhoto": false,
  "hasVideo": false,
  "mediaUrls": [],
  "linkPreviewUrl": "https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/156620",
  "linkPreviewTitle": "Telegram Returns as Title Sponsor of Codeforces!",
  "linkPreviewSite": "Codeforces",
  "outlinks": [
    "https://codeforces.com/blog/entry/156620"
  ],
  "authorSignature": "Pavel Durov",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-20T12:39:53.811Z"
}

Channel rows carry title, description, subscribers, photos, videos, links and the avatar URL.

How fast is it and how much does it cost to scrape Telegram channels?

75 posts from 3 channels took 8 seconds. You are charged per post returned, and the keyword, view and date filters run before you pay.

How to monitor Telegram channels for changes

Turn on onlyNewPosts and the Actor remembers the posts it already returned for each channel. On a schedule it returns only what was posted since — a cheap way to follow a set of channels.

Limits you should know about

• Public channels only. Private channels and group chats have no web preview, and this Actor will report them as not found.
• Comments on posts are not part of the web preview, so they are not included.

Pricing — what you pay per post

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: no monthly rental, you pay for the results you get. Prices per 1,000 results by Apify plan:

Event	Free plan	Bronze	Silver	Gold+
post — One Telegram post or channel profile	$0.60	$0.54	$0.51	$0.48

There is also a small start fee of $0.00005 per GB of memory ($0.00005 per run at the default 1 GB). Platform compute is included in the price — you are not billed separately for run time. Set a maximum total charge on the run if you want a hard cap, and use the input limits to control how much is fetched. The current prices are always on the Pricing tab.

Tips

• Pass usernames in any form — durov, @durov or https://t.me/durov all work.
• For a long archive, set postedAfter instead of a huge maxPostsPerChannel: paging stops as soon as posts get older than that date.
• Use searchTerms and minViews to pay only for the posts you care about — they are applied before charging.
• For a watch list, schedule a run every hour or day with onlyNewPosts on and connect Slack or Google Sheets.
• Private channels and groups have no public preview — they are reported as not found and never charged.
• Start with a small maxResults (say 20) to check the output, then raise it — you only pay per result.
• Keep the default proxy setting — it is only used as a fallback when a direct request is blocked.
• Rows the Actor cannot read are logged and skipped, never charged — check the run log if a count looks low.

Automate & schedule

Run this Actor on autopilot and pull results into your own stack:

• Apify API — start runs, fetch datasets and manage schedules over REST.
• apify-client for JavaScript and apify-client for Python — official SDKs.
• Schedules — run it on a cron to keep your data fresh.
• Webhooks — trigger downstream actions the moment a run finishes.

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'MY_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('tindacloud/telegram-channel-scraper').call({
    "channels": [
        "durov",
        "telegram"
    ],
    "mode": "posts",
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 50,
    "maxResults": 1000
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Got ${items.length} records`);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("MY_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("tindacloud/telegram-channel-scraper").call(run_input={
    "channels": [
        "durov",
        "telegram"
    ],
    "mode": "posts",
    "maxPostsPerChannel": 50,
    "maxResults": 1000
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

cURL — run and get the results in one request:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tindacloud~telegram-channel-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=MY_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channels": ["durov", "telegram"], "mode": "posts", "maxPostsPerChannel": 50, "maxResults": 1000}'

Integrate with any app

Connect the dataset to thousands of apps — no code required:

• Make — multi-step automation scenarios.
• Zapier — push new records straight into your CRM or sheet.
• n8n — self-hosted workflows.
• Slack — get notified when a run finishes or finds something new.
• Google Drive / Sheets — auto-export every run to a spreadsheet.
• Airbyte — pipe results into your data warehouse.
• GitHub — trigger runs from commits or releases.
• Webhooks — call your own endpoint when a run succeeds or fails.

Use with AI assistants (MCP)

The output is clean, LLM-ready JSON. Call this Actor from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any agent framework through the Apify MCP server — ask your assistant to "read the last 200 posts of these Telegram channels and summarize what they announced this week" and let it run this Actor for you.

Agent-ready: autonomous payments (x402 & Skyfire)

This Actor is agent-ready — AI agents can discover it, run it and pay for it on their own. It uses pay-per-event pricing and limited permissions, so it qualifies for Apify's agentic payments:

• x402 — an open, HTTP-native payment protocol. Agents pay in USDC through the Apify MCP server — no Apify account needed.
• Skyfire — agent-to-service payments with pre-funded Skyfire tokens.

Building an AI agent, MCP tool or data pipeline? This Actor is ready to plug in and pay as it goes.

Ready-made examples

Open one, change the fields, press Start — nothing to configure:

• Scrape a public Telegram channel
• Monitor a Telegram channel for new posts
• Export Telegram channel posts with views

Frequently asked questions about scraping Telegram channels

Do I need an API key or a login?

No. Paste your input, press Start. There is nothing to connect and no account on the target site to create.

How do I export the results?

Every run produces a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML, or read through the Apify API from your own code. You can also connect it to Make, Zapier or n8n.

Can I run this on a schedule?

Yes. Apify schedules run it every hour, day or week without you being there. With the monitoring option on, you only get posts published since the last run.

Can I call it from Python or JavaScript?

Yes — the Apify API runs any Actor and returns the dataset, and the official Python and JavaScript clients wrap it in a few lines. AI agents can call it too, through Apify's MCP server.

What does it cost?

You pay per result, not per hour. Filters are applied before anything is charged, so narrowing the input directly lowers the bill. Pages that cannot be read are reported in the log and never charged.

Is this data public?

Everything collected here is what public Telegram channels shows to anyone without logging in. Check the target site's terms and the rules that apply to you before using the data commercially.

Related scrapers

• Threads Scraper — profiles and posts on Meta's Threads
• Google News Scraper — articles with the real source URL
• YouTube Comments Scraper — reactions with likes and replies

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Telegram FZ-LLC. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. "Telegram" is named here only in a descriptive sense — to identify the publicly available website this Actor reads. It collects only publicly available information that anyone can see without logging in; you are responsible for making sure your use of the data complies with applicable laws, regulations and the terms of the source website.