Export any public Telegram channel to CSV or JSON in 5 minutes — no API keys, no phone number

Chorelet — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 09:37:11 +0000

Telegram's official API needs an api_id, an api_hash and a phone number tied to a real account — a lot of ceremony (and risk) if all you want is the posts of a few public channels. This post shows a lighter route: the public web preview that Telegram publishes for every open channel at t.me/s/<channel>, packaged as an API call.

What you get

One JSON object per post: channel, channelTitle, channelSubscribers, id, url, date (UTC), text, author, views, reactions (per emoji) and reactionsTotal, forwardedFrom, replyTo, mediaTypes, photos, videos, documents, poll, linkPreview, links, hashtags, mentions. Newest first, with a date cut-off so daily runs stay tiny.

1. One curl

Create a free account at apify.com (no card; $5 of usage per month included), grab the API token from Settings → Integrations, then:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/chorelet~telegram-channel-posts-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN&format=csv" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"channels": ["telegram", "durov"], "maxPostsPerChannel": 100, "postedAfter": "30 days"}' \
  -o posts.csv

format=csv → spreadsheet; drop it for JSON; xlsx also works. The call blocks until the run finishes (a few seconds for a couple of hundred posts).

2. Python

pip install apify-client

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("chorelet/telegram-channel-posts-scraper").call(
    run_input={"channels": ["telegram", "durov"], "maxPostsPerChannel": 200, "postedAfter": "7 days"}
)
for post in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(post["date"][:10], post["channel"], post["views"], (post["text"] or "")[:80])

3. Keep it running

In the Apify console: Schedules → daily → the same input with "postedAfter": "1 day". The Actor stops at the first post older than the cut-off, so a daily run over 20 channels is usually a few hundred posts — cents, or free on the free tier. Add an integration (Google Sheets, Slack, webhook) on the run's "Integrations" tab if you want the data pushed somewhere.

What it can't do

Private channels, invite links (t.me/+…), bots, groups without a web preview → the run reports "not a public channel" for that entry and continues with the rest.
Comments (discussion groups) aren't part of the preview.
Counts are the rounded numbers Telegram shows (1.2K → 1200). Media URLs are CDN links that expire.

How it works under the hood

The preview page is plain HTML: 20 posts per page, ?before=<id> for older ones, reactions and views as text, media as CDN links.

If you'd rather build your own, the selectors are simple:

each post is div.tgme_widget_message[data-post="Channel/123"]
inside it: time[datetime], .tgme_widget_message_text, .tgme_widget_message_views, .tgme_widget_message_reactions
the next page of history is the a.tme_messages_more[data-before] link

Three gotchas I hit:

Usernames can be aliases. t.me/s/proglib renders the channel proglibrary — take the name from data-post, not from your input.
Bots and channels with the preview disabled answer HTTP 200 with a normal-looking page but no .tgme_channel_info block. Check for the block, not the status code.
Post #1 is the "Channel created" service message (class service_message) — skip those.

Disclosure

The Actor is mine. It's $0.50 per 1,000 posts after the free tier, and it's checked by an automated run every morning so it gets fixed when Telegram changes the markup: https://chorelet.app/p/telegram-channel-posts-scraper

DEV Community: Chorelet