# Telegram Channel Scraper (`tindacloud/telegram-channel-scraper`) Actor

- **URL**: https://apify.com/tindacloud/telegram-channel-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Seungki Min](https://apify.com/tindacloud) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, News, AI
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.60 / 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.

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

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.

### What you can do with it

- **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.

### Input

| 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 |

### Output

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

```json
{
  "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.

### Speed and cost

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.

### Monitoring mode

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.

### Notes

- 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.

### Related Actors

- [Threads Scraper](https://apify.com/tindacloud/threads-scraper) — profiles and posts on Meta's Threads
- [Google News Scraper](https://apify.com/tindacloud/google-news-scraper) — articles with the real source URL
- [YouTube Comments Scraper](https://apify.com/tindacloud/youtube-comments-scraper) — reactions with likes and replies

# Actor input Schema

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

Channel usernames or links — “durov”, “@telegram”, “https://t.me/bloomberg”. Public channels only; private ones have no web preview.

## `mode` (type: `string`):

Posts, the channel profile, or both.

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

Older posts are loaded page by page until this many are collected.

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

YYYY-MM-DD. Paging stops once it goes past this date.

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

Keep only posts whose text contains one of these words.

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

Keep only posts with at least this many views.

## `onlyPostsWithLinks` (type: `boolean`):

Keep only posts that link somewhere — useful for tracking what a channel promotes.

## `onlyNewPosts` (type: `boolean`):

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.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Total limit across all channels.

## `proxy` (type: `object`):

Apify Proxy is used as a fallback when a direct request is blocked.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "channels": [
    "durov",
    "telegram"
  ],
  "mode": "posts",
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 50,
  "onlyPostsWithLinks": false,
  "onlyNewPosts": false,
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All results in a table view.

# 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": [
        "durov",
        "telegram"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("tindacloud/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": [
        "durov",
        "telegram",
    ] }

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

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,tindacloud/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/UdW06kVvGhp7OWgBE/builds/w9H91nVRX9YWFsBoB/openapi.json