Get back to your export

Use a device where you are already signed in:


indexit telegram auth login --qr

You can also type qr at the phone-code prompt. Repeatedly requesting a code is not useful when Telegram has no alternate delivery channel. More about login.

“Peer … not in cache”

Populate the cache using the same account and cache path as the failing command:


indexit telegram fetch dialogs

Then retry. A public @username or t.me/name link can resolve without a warm cache. Numeric user/channel IDs and t.me/c/ links cannot.

I got the whole group instead of one topic

A link ending in one number, such as https://t.me/example_forum/42, identifies a message, not a topic. Copy a message link from inside the topic, including both numbers:


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

Discover topic IDs with fetch topics --dialog @example_forum. Use singular fetch message for one exact linked message.

The command is waiting

indexit logs progress and a heartbeat during long network calls. Telegram can require a FLOOD_WAIT; indexit waits and retries the call once. A wait longer than the remaining command deadline fails instead. PEER_FLOOD fails immediately.


indexit -v telegram fetch messages \
  --dialog @example_channel --limit 10 --timeout 60s

If Telegram is unreachable, configure a proxy. Use -vvv only when you need transport details, and review diagnostic logs before sharing them.

Some files are missing

Inspect download results directly:


indexit -q telegram fetch media \
  --dialog @example_channel --media photo --limit 20 --dir ./photos \
  | jq --unbuffered -c 'select(.error)'

A single failure does not abort the walk. Repeat the same command to retry missing files. Existing non-empty files are skipped; use --overwrite if a saved file is damaged. Put different dialogs in different destination directories.

fx does not open an interactive view

Install the native fx binary , for example with brew install fx. The npm package provides non-interactive processing only. Run the command in a terminal and keep the first fetch bounded with --limit 200.

My search cannot find an older message

fx and fzf search the records received in this run. Increase --limit or use a date window to reach older messages.

A message is missing without a warning

-q hides warnings as well as progress. Omit it to see why specific messages were skipped. Use the output reference to interpret partial results.

My shell settings seem to be ignored

A loaded .env wins over matching environment variables. Check the loaded .env line, or disable file loading:


indexit --env-file="" telegram auth status

Use -v or -q for log levels. See configuration precedence.

Session permissions are rejected

On macOS and Linux, set the session file’s mode to 0600 (substitute your path if you changed it):


chmod 600 ~/.config/indexit/telegram/session.json

If Telegram has revoked the session, sign in again. Keep session files and API credentials out of bug reports.

Still stuck? Open an issue with indexit version, the command with sensitive values removed, and the error message.