Bring the album home

Suppose each trip lives in a Telegram forum topic. Find the trip, browse its history, and download the photos without saving them one by one.

Sign in and install fx first. Replace @example_forum with your public forum’s username, and use its actual topic and message numbers in the links below. For private groups, discover the address with fetch dialogs and use a full topic link from Telegram.

Find the trip

indexit -q telegram fetch topics --dialog @example_forum | fx

Search for the trip’s title in fx. Each record includes topic_id, the title, creation date, and available counters and flags. Topic discovery is for forum supergroups and pages automatically.

Open the topic

Copy a message link from inside that topic. A full topic link has both a topic ID and a message ID after the forum name:

indexit -q telegram fetch messages \
  --dialog https://t.me/example_forum/42/1042 --limit 100 | fx

Here, 42 identifies the topic and 1042 is the linked message. The history command walks the topic; it does not stop at message 1042.

A link with just one number, such as https://t.me/example_forum/42, identifies a message. For history or media, it selects the whole dialog, not topic 42. More about addresses.

Download the photos

indexit -q telegram fetch media \
  --dialog https://t.me/example_forum/42/1042 \
  --media photo --limit 20 --dir ./trip | fx

Up to 20 matching file records are processed. Photos go into trip/; the manifest opens in fx so you can inspect paths and results. Remove --limit 20 to walk all matching photos in the topic.

Photos use the largest available Telegram size, which may differ from an original compressed by Telegram. Names use the message ID, such as 1042.jpg. A document uses its message ID plus the original extension when available.

Each result carries message_id, path, type, date, size, and available topic/album information. grouped_id links frames from the same album. Sort by numeric message ID when reconstructing their order.

Check the result and repeat

In fx, search paths with @ and look for error. A failed file produces an error record while the walk continues, so check these records even after a successful exit.

Run the command again to retry missing files. Existing non-empty files get skipped: true; add --overwrite to fetch them again. This checks existence and size, not a checksum.

Downloads use a neighboring .part file and rename it after completion. A retry starts an unfinished file over. Use a separate directory per dialog because message IDs can overlap between dialogs.

Adjust the selection

Skipped files and failed downloads also count toward --limit. Polls, locations, contacts, and web previews have no downloadable file in this command.