---

Features

• Chat Management: List, search, mute/unmute chats
• Messages: Read, search, inspect context, send, draft, schedule, link-resolve, and backup messages
• AI Summarization: Summarize chat conversations using multiple LLM providers
• Secure: Session stored in macOS Keychain (file-based storage on Linux/Windows)

Installation

go install github.com/tolmachov/mcp-telegram@latest

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/tolmachov/mcp-telegram.git
cd mcp-telegram
make

Setup

1. Get Telegram API Credentials

1. Go to my.telegram.org/apps
2. Create an application
3. Copy api_id and api_hash

2. Configure Environment

Store credentials (macOS Keychain; plaintext JSON at ~/.local/state/mcp-telegram/config.json with 0600 perms on Linux/Windows):

mcp-telegram config set api-id 123456789
mcp-telegram config set api-hash abcd1234efgh5678

Or use a .env file:

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your credentials

3. Login to Telegram

mcp-telegram login --phone +1234567890

You'll be prompted for a verification code sent to your Telegram.

4. Configure MCP Client

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "telegram": {
      "command": "mcp-telegram",
      "args": ["run"],
      "env": {
        "TELEGRAM_API_ID": "your_api_id",
        "TELEGRAM_API_HASH": "your_api_hash"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add telegram -- /path/to/mcp-telegram run

Set environment variables in your .env file or pass them via --env.

Available Tools

19 tools exposed to MCP clients. Messages are identified by opaque string handles ("42" for regular, "s:42" for scheduled) — copy them back verbatim from tool outputs to follow-up calls, never parse or construct them manually.

Tool	Description
GetMe	Get current user information
GetChats	List all chats, groups, and channels
SearchChats	Fuzzy search for chats by name
GetChatInfo	Get detailed information about a chat
GetMessages	Get messages from a chat (set include_scheduled=true to also list pending scheduled messages in a separate field)
SearchMessages	Search within one chat by substring, with optional date / sender / media / thread filters
SearchMessagesGlobal	Search by substring across all chats with opaque cursor-based pagination
GetMessageContext	Get messages around a specific anchor message in chronological order
SendMessage	Send, reply, schedule, or draft a message. mode = send (default) / schedule / draft; reply_to_message_id works with any mode; schedule_at is RFC3339
EditMessage	Edit a message; for scheduled handles, schedule_at reschedules delivery in the same call
DeleteMessage	Delete a message; "s:<id>" handles cancel pending scheduled messages
ForwardMessage	Forward a delivered message (scheduled handles are rejected)
ResolveMessageLink	Parse t.me / tg:// message links into chat_id, message_id, and topic_message_id for forum links
MarkAsRead	Mark one or more chats as read
BackupMessages	Export messages to a text file (idempotent; overwrites target)
ResolveUsername	Resolve @username to user/chat info
SetChatMute	Mute or unmute chat notifications (muted bool + optional duration_seconds)
SummarizeChat	AI-powered chat summarization via sampling / Gemini / Ollama / Anthropic
GetMedia	Download photo media from a media resource URI; returns MCP image content

Available Resources

URI	Description
telegram://me	Current user info
telegram://chats	All chats list
telegram://chat/{id}/info	Detailed info for any chat ID via resource template
telegram://chats/{id}	Last 100 messages from a pinned chat (dynamic resource, only for currently pinned chats)

Pinned chat resources are created dynamically for each pinned chat and refreshed in the background; clients will receive resources/list_changed when the set changes.

Available Prompts

3 parameterized prompts that MCP clients expose as slash-commands or quick actions.

Prompt	Arguments	Description
daily-digest	period — day (default) / week / month	Walks active chats and produces a per-chat digest of key updates and action items. Read-only.
chat-catchup	chat (required) — ID / @username / title; period — day / week (default) / month	Summarizes a specific chat and lists messages that look like they need a reply. Read-only.
find-and-reply	chat (required), query (required) — what to search for, reply (required) — reply text or instruction	Searches for a message, shows a draft reply, and sends only after explicit user confirmation.

Prompt Examples

Here are some example prompts you can use with AI assistants:

Message Management

• "Check for any unread important messages in my Telegram"
• "Summarize all my unread Telegram messages"
• "Read and analyze my unread messages, prepare draft responses where needed"
• "Check non-critical unread messages and give me a brief overview"
• "Find messages mentioning 'invoice' in my work chat from last week"
• "Open the context around this Telegram link: https://t.me/example/123"

Organization

• "Analyze my Telegram dialogs and suggest a folder structure"
• "Help me categorize my Telegram chats by importance"
• "Find all work-related conversations and suggest how to organize them"

Communication

• "Monitor specific chat for updates about [topic]"
• "Draft a polite response to the last message in [chat]"
• "Check if there are any unanswered questions in my chats"
• "Resolve this Telegram message link and show me the thread context"

Backup & Export

• "Backup my conversation with [contact] to a file"
• "Export the last week of messages from [group]"
• "Backup media-only updates too so nothing is silently skipped"

Chat Summarization

The SummarizeChat tool supports multiple LLM providers:

• sampling (experimental): Uses the MCP client's LLM via MCP Sampling. Only works with clients that support sampling: VS Code, fast-agent, Continue. Does NOT work with Claude Desktop or Claude Code.
• ollama: Local LLM via Ollama - no API key required
• gemini: Google Gemini API
• anthropic: Anthropic Claude API

Configure via environment variables:

SUMMARIZE_PROVIDER=ollama  # or: sampling, gemini, anthropic
SUMMARIZE_MODEL=           # provider-specific model name

Commands

# Run MCP server (used by MCP clients)
mcp-telegram run

# Login to Telegram
mcp-telegram login --phone +1234567890

# Logout and delete session
mcp-telegram logout

# Securely store config values (macOS Keychain / file on Linux)
mcp-telegram config set api-id 123456789
mcp-telegram config set api-hash abcd1234

# List stored keys
mcp-telegram config list

# Delete a stored value
mcp-telegram config delete api-id

Allowed keys: api-id, api-hash, anthropic, gemini.

Credentials resolve in this priority order (higher wins): CLI flags (--api-id, --api-hash) → environment variables (including .env) → secure store values set via config set. This lets you keep stable values in the keychain and override per-run from the command line without editing the store.

Configuration Options

Environment Variable	Description	Default
TELEGRAM_API_ID	Telegram API ID	Required
TELEGRAM_API_HASH	Telegram API Hash	Required
TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_PATHS	Allowed directories for backups	OS app data dir
SUMMARIZE_PROVIDER	LLM provider for summarization	sampling (experimental)
SUMMARIZE_MODEL	Model name	Provider default
SUMMARIZE_BATCH_TOKENS	Tokens per summarization batch	8000
OLLAMA_URL	Ollama API URL	http://localhost:11434
GEMINI_API_KEY	Google Gemini API key	-
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Anthropic API key	-
TELEGRAM_MEDIA_MAX_BYTES	Max bytes GetMedia will download per call (cap to avoid OOM on large attachments)	52428800 (50 MiB)
TELEGRAM_RATE_LIMIT_RPS	RPS ceiling for history-fetching calls to Telegram. Exceeding Telegram's FLOOD_WAIT thresholds pauses all tools.	0 (safe built-in default)
TELEGRAM_PINNED_REFRESH_SECONDS	Polling interval (seconds) for the pinned-chat resource watcher. 0 disables the watcher.	30

Destructive Actions

Tools like DeleteMessage request user confirmation via MCP elicitation before proceeding. If your MCP client does not support elicitation, the server proceeds automatically without a confirmation dialog.

Session Storage

• macOS: Stored securely in Keychain.
• Linux/Windows: Stored in ~/.local/state/mcp-telegram/session.json with 0600 file permissions. The file is plaintext — keep the containing user account trusted, and prefer running on macOS when handling sensitive accounts.

Config values set via mcp-telegram config set (API keys, Telegram credentials) follow the same backend: Keychain on macOS, plaintext JSON on Linux/Windows.

License

MIT