Telegram forwarder from channels (make channel mirrors) via Telegram Client API (telethon)

Functionality

• No need to be added by the channel's admin
• Listen to update events (new message, message edited, message deleted and etc)
• Live forwarding and updating messages
• Flexible mapping of source and target channels/chats (one-to-one, many-to-one, many-to-many)
• Configurable incoming message filters: appending forward header, filter URLs and so on

Prepare

0. It's better not to use your main account. Register a new Telegram account

1. Create Telegram App

2. Obtain API_ID and API_HASH

   

3. Setup Postgres database or use InMemoryDatabase with USE_MEMORY_DB=true parameter in .env file

4. Fill .env-example with your data and rename it to .env

   .env-example contains the minimum environment configuration to run with an in-memory database.

   SESSION_STRING can be obtained by running login.py locally (on your PC with installed python 3.9+) with putted API_ID and API_HASH before.

   Channels ID can be fetched by using @messageinformationsbot Telegram bot (just send it a message from the desired channel).

   .env overview

   # Telegram app ID
   API_ID=test
   # Telegram app hash
   API_HASH=test
   # Telegram session string (telethon session, see login.py in root directory)
   SESSION_STRING=test
   # Mapping between source and target channels/chats
   # Channel/chat id can be fetched by using @messageinformationsbot telegram bot
   # Channel id should be prefixed with -100
   # [id1, id2, id3:id4] means send messages from id1, id2, id3 to id4
   # id5:id6 means send messages from id5 to id6
   # [id1, id2, id3:id4];[id5:id6] semicolon means AND
   CHAT_MAPPING=[-100999999,-100999999,-100999999:-1009999999];
   # Remove URLs from incoming messages (true or false). Defaults to false
   REMOVE_URLS=false
   # Comma-separated list of URLs to remove (reddit.com,youtube.com)
   REMOVE_URLS_LIST=google.com,twitter.com
   # Comma-separated list of URLs to exclude from removal (google.com,twitter.com).
   # Will be applied after the REMOVE_URLS_LIST
   REMOVE_URLS_WL=youtube.com,youtu.be,vk.com,twitch.tv,instagram.com
   # Disable mirror message deleting (true or false). Defaults to false
   DISABLE_DELETE=false
   # Disable mirror message editing (true or false). Defaults to false
   DISABLE_EDIT=false
   # Use an in-memory database instead of Postgres DB (true or false). Defaults to false
   USE_MEMORY_DB=false
   # Postgres credentials
   DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:pass@host/dbname
   # or
   DB_NAME=test
   DB_USER=test
   DB_HOST=test
   DB_PASS=test
   # Logging level (debug, info, warning, error or critical). Defaults to info
   LOG_LEVEL=info
   

5. Make sure the account has joined source and target channels

Be careful with forwards from channels with restricted saving content. It may lead to an account ban.

Help is also welcome to work around this limitation. See sources.

Deploy

Host on Heroku:

or manually:

1. Clone project

   git clone https://github.com/khoben/telemirror.git
   

2. Create new heroku app within Heroku CLI

   heroku create {your app name}
   

3. Add heroku remote

   heroku git:remote -a {your app name}
   

4. Set environment variables to your heroku app from .env by running bash script

   ./set_heroku_env.bash
   

5. Upload on heroku host

   git push heroku master
   

6. Start heroku app

   heroku ps:scale run=1
   

Locally:

1. Create and activate python virtual environment

   python -m venv myvenv
   source myvenv/Scripts/activate # linux
   myvenv/Scripts/activate # windows
   

2. Install dependencies

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

3. Run

   python main.py
   

Keep up-to-date with Heroku

If you deployed manually, move to step 2.

0. Get project to your PC:

   heroku git:clone -a {your app name}
   

1. Init upstream repo

   git remote add origin https://github.com/khoben/telemirror
   

2. Get latest changes

   git pull origin master
   

3. Push latest changes to heroku

   git push heroku master -f