Telegram Scraper - Channels, Messages, Media & Search

Extract data from public Telegram channels at scale — full message history, media, reactions, polls, forwards, replies, link previews, channel stats, and in-channel keyword search. No login, no phone number, no API keys.

No login / no cookies — HTTP-only (no headless browser) for fast, low-cost, reliable runs.

Why this Telegram scraper?

Typical scrapers	This actor
Require a phone number, login, or API credentials	No login, no phone number, no API keys — reads the public web preview
Return plain message text only	Returns text plus views, author, forwards, replies, hashtags, mentions, links, media, polls and link previews
Headless browser, slow and expensive	HTTP-only (Cheerio) — fast, low-cost, reliable
No way to filter inside a channel	Native in-channel keyword search returns only matching messages
Whole-timeline only	Filter by date range (newer than / older than, ISO or relative like 7 days)
Channel metadata is an afterthought	Dedicated channelInfo mode for title, description, subscriber and content counts

Use cases

• Crypto / web3 monitoring — track trading-signal channels and community sentiment across many channels at once.
• OSINT & threat intelligence — collect message history, forwards, and link previews from public channels for analysis.
• News & topic aggregation — pull fresh posts from news and announcement channels and filter to a recent date window.
• Brand & competitor tracking — search channels by keyword to surface only mentions you care about.
• LLM / RAG dataset building — export clean, structured message records for fine-tuning, retrieval, and sentiment pipelines.

How to use

1. Sign up for Apify — the free plan is enough to try this actor.
2. Open the Telegram Scraper, fill in the inputs you need, and click Start.
3. Watch results stream into the dataset table as each record is parsed.
4. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS — or pull results programmatically via the Apify API.

Input

{
    "channels": ["@durov", "https://t.me/telegram"],
    "resultsType": "messages",
    "maxMessages": 200,
    "searchQuery": "",
    "oldestMessageDate": "30 days",
    "downloadMedia": false,
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}

• channels (required, array) — public channels to scrape. Accepts @username, plain username, or a t.me/username URL (also t.me/s/username). Private/invite-only channels are not supported.
• resultsType (string, default messages) — messages to scrape each channel's messages, or channelInfo for channel metadata/stats only.
• maxMessages (integer, default 100) — max messages per channel. Ignored when resultsType is channelInfo.
• searchQuery (string, optional) — when set, returns only messages matching this keyword in each channel, using Telegram's native in-channel search. Leave empty to scrape the full timeline.
• oldestMessageDate (string, optional) — stop once messages older than this date are reached. Accepts ISO dates (e.g. 2026-01-01) or relative values like 7 days, 3 months.
• newestMessageDate (string, optional) — skip messages newer than this date. Accepts ISO or relative values like 1 day.
• downloadMedia (boolean, default false) — download photos/videos/documents into the run's key-value store and add a reference to each record. Media URLs are always included regardless of this setting.
• proxyConfiguration (object) — proxy settings; Apify Proxy (datacenter) recommended for reliability at scale.

Output

In messages mode, each message is one dataset record:

{
    "channel": "durov",
    "messageId": 372,
    "url": "https://t.me/durov/372",
    "date": "2026-05-21T14:02:11+00:00",
    "text": "Example post text...",
    "views": 1200000,
    "author": "Pavel Durov",
    "forwardedFrom": null,
    "forwardedFromUrl": null,
    "replyToUrl": null,
    "isPinned": false,
    "hashtags": ["#telegram"],
    "mentions": ["@telegram"],
    "links": ["https://example.com"],
    "media": [{ "type": "photo", "url": "https://cdn5.telesco.pe/file/..." }],
    "poll": null,
    "linkPreview": null
}

In channelInfo mode, each record contains channel, url, title, username, description, avatarUrl, subscribers, and content counts (photosCount, videosCount, filesCount, linksCount).

Notes:

• Optional fields are returned as null when Telegram doesn't expose them on the public preview (e.g. author, views, forwardedFrom, poll, linkPreview).
• When downloadMedia is enabled and a file is stored, each media item gains a storeKey pointing to the run's key-value store; media URLs are always present either way.
• Private/invite-only channels are skipped with a clear log message; the run still completes as a success.

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.

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'MY_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('scrapesage/telegram-scraper').call({
    channels: ['@durov', 'https://t.me/telegram'],
    resultsType: 'messages',
    maxMessages: 200,
    oldestMessageDate: '30 days',
    downloadMedia: false,
});

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

Integrate with any app

Connect the dataset to 5,000+ apps — no code required:

• Make — multi-step automation scenarios.
• Zapier — push new records straight into your CRM or sheet.
• Slack — get notified when a run 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.

Use with AI assistants (MCP)

The output is clean, LLM-ready JSON. Call this actor from Claude, ChatGPT, or any agent framework through the Apify MCP server — ask your assistant to "pull the last 200 messages from @durov and summarize what changed this week" and let it run this scraper for you.

More scrapers from scrapesage

Need data from other sources? Try these scrapesage actors:

• facebook-ad-library-scraper — Meta/Instagram competitor ad intelligence.
• google-ads-transparency-scraper — see who's advertising what on Google.
• bark-scraper — Bark.com provider profiles & leads.
• sam-gov-scraper — US federal contract opportunities & contacts.
• eventbrite-scraper — events plus organizer leads with contacts.
• airbnb-scraper — short-stay listings, prices, availability & market monitor.
• linkedin-jobs-scraper — filter-based LinkedIn job postings, no login.

Tips

• Pass channels as @username, plain username, or full t.me/... links — the actor normalizes all three.
• Combine searchQuery with your channel list to pull only on-topic messages instead of the whole timeline (note: it searches within the channels you provide, not all of Telegram).
• Use oldestMessageDate / newestMessageDate with relative values like 7 days to keep recurring runs lightweight.
• Only enable downloadMedia when you need the actual files — URLs are always included, and skipping the download keeps runs faster and cheaper.
• Keep proxyConfiguration on Apify Proxy (datacenter) for reliable runs at scale.

FAQ

Do I need a Telegram account, phone number, or API key? No. The actor reads Telegram's public web preview over HTTP — no login, no phone number, no credentials.

Can it scrape private or invite-only channels? No. Only public channels are accessible via the public web preview. Private/invite-only channels (and standard user-account messages) are skipped with a clear log message.

Is this legal? The actor only collects publicly visible data from public channels. You are responsible for using the data in line with Telegram's terms and applicable laws.

What if a channel has no matching messages? Empty results are reported as a successful run. Date filters and searchQuery may legitimately return zero records for a given channel.

In what formats can I export the data? JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS via the Apify console, or programmatically through the Apify API.

Where do downloaded media files go? Into the run's default key-value store (when downloadMedia is enabled), with a storeKey reference added to each media item in the dataset.

Need help?

Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab, or visit the Apify help center. Feature requests are welcome — this actor is actively maintained.