Telegram Channel Scraper – Public Posts

sfoln/telegram-channel-scraper · Social media, News, Lead generation On request

Scrape posts from public Telegram channels without login: text and markdown, date, views, reactions, links, media URLs (photos, videos, files), forwards and replies, plus the channel's title, description and subscriber count. $0.80 per 1,000 posts, channel info free.

Request access Run it$0.80 / 1,000 telegram post

About

What it does

Scrape posts from public Telegram channels without a Telegram account, phone number or API key. For each channel you get its newest posts as clean rows — text and markdown, date, views, reactions, links, hashtags, photo/video/file URLs, forwards and replies — plus the channel info (title, description, subscribers, photo, verified badge) for free. Built for news and crypto monitoring, brand and community tracking, research datasets and AI agents.

Price

Price per delivered record

Event	Price	Per 1,000	Charged for
Telegram post `post`	$0.0008	$0.80 / 1,000	Charged once per channel post delivered (text, date, views, reactions, links, media URLs).

Apify free plan: up to 10 items per run. Paid plans have no per-run cap; set maxTotalChargeUsd to cap spend.

Run

Call it from code, an agent or the Console

This API is private on Apify for now. Email us and we will publish it for you, usually within two working days. The calls below work once it is public. contact@sfoln.com

curl · synchronous run, rows in the response

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/sfoln~telegram-channel-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channels":["telegram"],"maxPostsPerChannel":10}'

mcp.json · hosted Apify MCP server

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=sfoln/telegram-channel-scraper"
    }
  }
}

asynchronous run · for large batches

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/sfoln~telegram-channel-scraper/runs?maxTotalChargeUsd=1
GET  https://api.apify.com/v2/actor-runs/{runId}            # until status is SUCCEEDED
GET  https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/{defaultDatasetId}/items?format=json

Authenticate with an Apify API token. MCP clients can instead sign in with OAuth when prompted. Example prompt for an agent: Use telegram-channel-scraper to get the last 20 posts of the telegram channel and summarize what was announced, with dates and view counts.

Input

Input fields

Public Telegram channels to read. Each channel delivers its newest posts first (one charged row per post) and one free summary record with the channel info.

Field	Type	Default	Meaning
`channels` *	`array`	required	Channels Public channel usernames or links, one per line: telegram, @telegram, https://t.me/telegram or https://t.me/s/telegram (a post link works too). Private channels and invite links (t.me/+…) have no public preview. Accounts on the Apify free plan can process up to 10 channels per run, with up to 20 posts each.
`maxPostsPerChannel`	`integer`	`20`	Max posts per channel Newest posts to deliver per channel (Telegram serves 20 per page). Range 1–5000.
`postedAfter`	`string`	—	Posted after Only posts on or after this date: YYYY-MM-DD, an ISO date-time, or a relative period such as "7 days". Paging stops at the first older post.
`beforePostId`	`integer`	—	Start before post ID Start with the posts older than this post ID (e.g. the oldestPostIdSeen of an earlier run) to continue a backfill. Range 2–….
`maxChannels`	`integer`	`100`	Max channels Safety cap on channels in this run; the rest are ignored and counted as inputItemsDropped in the OUTPUT record. Range 1–1000.
`concurrency`	`integer`	`2`	Concurrency Channels read in parallel (requests to t.me are rate limited for the whole run). Range 1–5.
`includeRaw`	`boolean`	`false`	Include raw HTML Attach each post's HTML block from the public preview page (larger output).

Example input

{
  "channels": [
    "telegram"
  ],
  "maxPostsPerChannel": 10
}

Output

One record per input item

Records land in the run's dataset; a synchronous call returns them directly. Each has a status (ok is charged; everything else is free) and a charged flag. The run's OUTPUT record totals items and charges.

Field	Type	Meaning
`input`	`string \| object`	Input The channel this record belongs to (canonical username).
`recordType`	`string`	Record type post (charged) or summary (one per channel, with the channel info; free). e.g. `"post"`
`position`	`integer`	Position Post number within its channel in this run (1 = newest).
`status`	`string`	Status ok \| not_found \| error \| skipped_invalid \| skipped_budget \| skipped_free_plan \| skipped_unmetered e.g. `"ok"`
`charged`	`boolean`	Charged Whether this record incurred a pay-per-event charge.
`chargedEvent`	`string`	Charged event Pay-per-event event charged for this record (present only when charged).
`chargedCount`	`integer`	Events charged Events actually charged when the charge came back short of the requested count (present only then; a warning explains it).
`source`	`string`	Source Upstream data source.
`fetchedAt`	`string`	Fetched at ISO timestamp.
`error`	`object`	Error { code, message, provider?, status? } when status is not ok. Codes set by the runtime: budget_exhausted, free_plan_limit, unmetered, aborted, charge_failed, record_too_large, invalid_record, dataset_push_failed; upstream codes: rate_limit, timeout, network, server, client, invalid_response, not_found; this Actor: invalid_input.
`warnings`	`array`	Warnings Notes about this record, e.g. a cap or the budget that stopped a channel early.
`channel`	`string`	Channel Channel username (lower case).
`postId`	`integer`	Post ID Message id within the channel.
`url`	`string`	Post URL https://t.me/<channel>/<postId>
`date`	`string \| null`	Date Publication time, ISO 8601 UTC.
`edited`	`boolean`	Edited The post was edited after publication.
`author`	`string \| null`	Author signature Author name shown on the post, when the channel signs posts.
`text`	`string \| null`	Text Plain text of the post or caption.
`markdown`	`string \| null`	Markdown The same text with bold, italic, links, code and quotes as markdown.
`views`	`integer \| null`	Views View count (approximate when Telegram abbreviates it).
`viewsText`	`string \| null`	Views (as shown) The view count as Telegram shows it, e.g. 1.56M.
`reactions`	`array`	Reactions [{ emoji, count }]: the emoji, paid (Telegram Stars) or custom:<id> for a custom emoji.
`reactionsTotal`	`integer \| null`	Reactions total Sum of all reaction counts.
`forwardedFrom`	`object \| null`	Forwarded from { name, url, username } of the original sender of a forwarded post (fields are null when hidden).
`replyTo`	`object \| null`	Reply to { postId, url, author, text } of the post this one replies to.
`links`	`array`	Links Links in the text and the link preview.
`hashtags`	`array`	Hashtags #hashtags in the text.
`mentions`	`array`	Mentions @mentions in the text.
`linkPreview`	`object \| null`	Link preview { url, siteName, title, description, imageUrl } of the attached link preview.
`poll`	`object \| null`	Poll { question, type, options: [{ text, percent }] }.
`media`	`array`	Media [{ type, url, thumbnailUrl, postUrl, durationSecs, title, details }]; type: photo, video, round_video, document, audio, voice, sticker, location.
`mediaTypes`	`array`	Media types Distinct media types of the post.
`mediaNotSupported`	`boolean`	Media only in the app Telegram shows this post's media only in its apps.
`channelTitle`	`string \| null`	Channel title The channel's display name.
`raw`	`string`	Raw HTML The post's HTML block from the preview page (only with includeRaw).
`channelDescription`	`string \| null`	Channel description Summary records: the channel's description.
`subscribers`	`integer \| null`	Subscribers Summary records: subscriber count (approximate when abbreviated).
`subscribersText`	`string \| null`	Subscribers (as shown) Summary records: e.g. 9.33M.
`photoUrl`	`string \| null`	Channel photo Summary records: channel photo URL.
`verified`	`boolean`	Verified Summary records: the channel has Telegram's verified badge.
`counters`	`object`	Counters Summary records: other header counters (photos, videos, files, links).
`channelUrl`	`string \| null`	Channel URL Summary records: https://t.me/<channel>.
`oldestPostIdSeen`	`integer \| null`	Oldest post ID seen Summary records: the oldest post ID this run delivered (null when none); pass it as beforePostId to continue further back.
`resultsDelivered`	`integer`	Posts delivered Summary records: charged post rows of this channel.
`stopReason`	`string`	Stop reason Summary records: limit \| free_plan \| end \| budget \| aborted \| deadline \| empty_pages \| max_pages \| error.

Example record

[
  {
    "input": "synthetic_news",
    "recordType": "post",
    "position": 1,
    "channel": "synthetic_news",
    "postId": 101,
    "url": "https://t.me/synthetic_news/101",
    "date": "2026-10-10T08:00:00.000Z",
    "edited": true,
    "author": "Synthetic Editor",
    "text": "✨ Big update is out: read the release notes.",
    "markdown": "✨ **Big update** is out: read the [release notes](https://example.com/blog/update).",
    "views": 15300,
    "viewsText": "15.3K",
    "reactions": [
      {
        "emoji": "👍",
        "count": 1200
      },
      {
        "emoji": "paid",
        "count": 12
      }
    ],
    "reactionsTotal": 1212,
    "forwardedFrom": null,
    "replyTo": null,
    "links": [
      "https://example.com/blog/update"
    ],
    "hashtags": [
      "#release"
    ],
    "mentions": [],
    "linkPreview": {
      "url": "https://example.com/blog/update",
      "siteName": "Example Blog",
      "title": "Release notes",
      "description": "Everything new in this release.",
      "imageUrl": "https://cdn4.example-cdn.test/file/preview.jpg"
    },
    "poll": null,
    "media": [
      {
        "type": "photo",
        "url": null,
        "thumbnailUrl": "https://cdn4.example-cdn.test/file/photo-101.jpg",
        "postUrl": "https://t.me/synthetic_news/101",
        "durationSecs": null,
        "title": null,
        "details": null
      }
    ],
    "mediaTypes": [
      "photo"
    ],
    "mediaNotSupported": false,
    "channelTitle": "Synthetic News",
    "status": "ok",
    "charged": true,
    "chargedEvent": "post",
    "source": "telegram",
    "fetchedAt": "2026-10-14T12:00:00.000Z"
  },
  {
    "input": "synthetic_news",
    "channel": "synthetic_news",
    "channelTitle": "Synthetic News",
    "channelDescription": "Test headlines for a synthetic channel.",
    "subscribers": 1250000,
    "subscribersText": "1.25M",
    "photoUrl": "https://cdn1.example-cdn.test/file/channel-photo.jpg",
    "verified": true,
    "counters": {
      "photos": 412,
      "videos": 38,
      "links": 2100
    },
    "channelUrl": "https://t.me/synthetic_news",
    "oldestPostIdSeen": 82,
    "recordType": "summary",
    "resultsDelivered": 20,
    "stopReason": "limit",
    "status": "ok",
    "charged": false,
    "source": "telegram",
    "fetchedAt": "2026-10-14T12:00:02.000Z"
  }
]

FAQ

Questions

Do I need a Telegram account, phone number or API key?: No. The Actor reads the public web preview Telegram shows for every public channel at `t.me/s/<channel>`; no login is involved.
Which channels work?: Public channels with a username. Private channels, invite links (t.me/+…), groups, bots and user accounts have no public preview and come back as not_found (free).
Are view and subscriber counts exact?: Telegram rounds them on the preview (for example 1.56M). The Actor returns the number it shows (views: 1560000) next to the original text (viewsText: "1.56M").
How do I scrape only new posts every day?: Schedule the Actor with postedAfter set to a relative period such as "1 day", or keep the oldestPostIdSeen of a run and pass it as beforePostId to continue a backfill.

Machine-readable

This page for agents

/actors/telegram-channel-scraper.json — this API as JSON
/actors/telegram-channel-scraper.md — this API as Markdown
/catalog.json — the whole catalogue