tdl
📥 A Telegram toolkit written in Golang
Command-line tool written in Go for downloading, uploading, and forwarding Telegram content, including protected files, plus exporting messages and channel members to JSON, faster than official Telegram clients.
tdl is a command-line tool for Telegram that goes beyond simple downloading. It is written in Go and runs as a single file with low resource usage, making it easy to set up on any machine.
The main things it can do: download files from Telegram chats including protected ones that normally block saving, upload files to Telegram, forward messages between chats with automatic routing when the direct forward is blocked, and export messages, channel members, or subscribers to JSON files. The README notes it can use your full available bandwidth and is faster than the official Telegram clients, with speed varying depending on whether you have a Telegram Premium subscription.
Full documentation lives on a separate site linked from the README. The tool is released under the AGPL-3.0 license, which means it is open source but any modifications you distribute must also be open source.
This is aimed at people who regularly work with Telegram content and want more control over downloading and moving files than the official apps provide.
Where it fits
- Download files from Telegram chats including ones marked as protected that block saving in official Telegram apps.
- Export all messages or channel member lists from a Telegram group to a JSON file for backup or analysis.
- Forward messages between Telegram chats automatically when direct forwarding is blocked by the sender.
- Upload files to Telegram at full available bandwidth, faster than what the official apps allow.