THE LAB #67: Scraping Telegram using its APIs

How to create a bot for scraping Telegram channels

Telegram has emerged as one of the most popular platforms for communication, community building, and sharing content in recent years. Its unique structure of public channels, private groups, and bots has made it a valuable data source for researchers, marketers, and developers.

I’m personally inside several Telegram groups, some just for fun, like groups of Matched Betting (no, I don’t do it, I just was curious about the math behind it) to local and global news channels.

In this article, we’ll cover the essentials of scraping Telegram, from setting up your first scraper to extracting messages in a public group to retrieving its members ’ information.

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Why Scrape Telegram?

Telegram is a treasure trove of publicly available data. You can listen to what happens in communities to understand how brands are perceived or for OSINT purposes, or even gather data for your AI model.

Before you begin, remember that scraping Telegram requires a clear ethical and legal framework. Stick to publicly accessible data and respect the platform’s rules.

Telegram Logo

Understanding Telegram’s Ecosystem

Before start writing our scraper, it’s essential to understand how Telegram is structured:

• Public Channels: Open to anyone with a Telegram account. They are primarily used for broadcasting messages.

• Public Groups: Interactive spaces for discussions where members can post messages.

• Private Channels/Groups: Invites or approval are required for access. Scraping these without consent is unethical and potentially illegal.

• Bots: Automated accounts that can be interacted with programmatically using Telegram’s Bot API.

This article will focus on scraping public channels and groups that are legal to access, especially if you don’t store personal data.

Tools and Technologies for Scraping Telegram

To scrape Telegram, you have a variety of tools you can choose from:

• Telegram API: Telegram provides an official API that allows you to interact with its platform programmatically. It’s the most reliable and scalable method for scraping.

• Telethon: A Python library that simplifies interaction with the Telegram API.

• Pyrogram: Another Python library similar to Telethon but with some additional features.

• BeautifulSoup/Selenium: These are used to scrape the web interface of Telegram, but they are less efficient and more prone to issues with automation blocks.

We’ll focus on using the Telegram API with Telethon, as it offers the most robust and scalable solution. Let’s start!

Step 1: Setting Up API Access

To use Telegram’s API, you need to obtain credentials:

1. Visit my.telegram.org and log in with your phone number.

2. Go to the “API Development Tools” section.

3. Create a new application by filling out the required details.

4. Note down the api_id and api_hash. These credentials are essential for accessing Telegram’s API.

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The script is in the GitHub repository's folder 67.TELEGRAM, which is available only to paying readers of The Web Scraping Club.

If you’re one of them and cannot access it, please use the following form to request access.

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Step 2: Installing Telethon

To interact with the Telegram API, install Telethon using pip:

pip install telethon

Once installed, you can use Telethon to connect to Telegram, fetch messages, and interact with channels.