TgChannelBackup

Features

• Saves all posts: text, photos, media
  • Every post is placed in separate folder
  • Every post folder contains full metadata
  • Posts folders are organized by date
  • Multiple media posts are saved in one folder
• If a discussion group is linked to channel, all comments are saved too
• Supports dry-run, reconcile of saved backup, custom post offset

Requirements

.NET 9 or higher

Build

1. Clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/kiraventom/TgChannelBackup
2. Open the executable dir: cd ./TgChannelBackup/TgChannelBackup.Cli
3. Restore the dependencies: dotnet restore
4. Build the project: dotnet build

Run

1. Create an app on https://my.telegram.org
2. Create an .env file setting the following environment variables:
   • TG_API_ID=<App api_id from my.telegram.org>
   • TG_API_HASH=<App api_hash from my.telegram.org>
   • TG_PHONE=<Phone number of the account you logged in with on my.telegram.org>
   • TG_PASSWORD=<Password to the account you logged in with on my.telegram.org. Required only if you have 2FA enabled>
3. TgChannelBackup takes multiple parameters, two of them are mandatory: --channel and --target.
   • --channel takes channel_id of the channel you need to back up. Example: --channel 1006503122
   • --target takes path to the directory. TgChannelBackup will back up the channel into the "channel_<channel_id>" directory inside of the target one.
4. Run the application. Example: dotnet run -- --channel 1006503122 --target ~/backup
   • On the first login, TgChannelBackup will ask for 5-digit code Telegram sends to your other device.
5. The application will start the backup: first the channel posts, then the discussion group.
   • The process can be interrupted with Ctrl+C. TgChannelBackup will pick up from where it has stopped.
   • After completing the backup TgChannelBackup will close itself.

Generated files

TgChannelBackup stores its database and logs at ~/.local/share/TgChannelBackup on Linux and at %APPDATA%/TgChannelBackup on Windows.

Database contains the id of last saved post/comment for each channel.

Bugs

There are some, for sure.