Using the viewer¶

This page walks through the web viewer screen by screen. For signing in and sharing, see Logins, viewer accounts and share links. For colours, see Themes and wallpaper. For notifications, see Live updates and notifications.

Layout¶

The viewer has three panes:

• The sidebar on the left holds the chat list and search.
• The chat pane in the middle shows the messages of the open chat.
• The info panel on the right opens when you click the chat's name or the chat information button in the chat header.

The viewer only reads the archive. It never contacts Telegram. The interface is in English only.

VIEWER_TIMEZONE sets the time zone for every time the viewer shows. It defaults to Europe/Madrid. If the zone name is unknown, the viewer logs a warning and uses UTC.

On a desktop you can resize the sidebar and the info panel. Drag the handle between two panes, or focus the handle and press Left or Right to move it 16 px at a time.

Each browser remembers its own widths.

Chat list¶

The top of the sidebar shows folder tabs under the search field. All Chats comes first, then one tab per Telegram folder, with the folder's emoji when it has one. Hover a folder tab to see its chat count; a screen reader reads it with the tab's name. The tabs only appear when the archive holds at least one folder. In All Chats, an Archived Chats row appears when you have archived chats in Telegram. Inside Archived Chats the tabs hide, a row at the top names the list and counts its chats, and its back arrow returns to the list.

Chats load 50 at a time. Scroll down and the next 50 load. Each row shows the chat's name and the date of its last message. Under the name is the chat's newest message, the way Telegram's own list shows it:

• In a group, the sender's first name comes first, for example Esme: Perfect, save me a seat.
• Your own message starts with You:, in a group and in a private chat.
• A message with no text is named by a word: Photo, Video, Voice message, Video message, File, Sticker, GIF, Location, Contact and so on. A caption shows instead of the word. A poll shows its question.
• A message deleted in Telegram is skipped, so the line shows the newest message the chat still has in Telegram. The chat itself still shows the deleted one with its mark.

The preview shows only what you could open in the chat: a viewer limited to some accounts or chats, a share link and a login without downloads see the preview of the chats they can open. A chat with no message to show keeps the line it had before 9.0: a group or a channel shows what kind of chat it is and its member count, for example group · 24 members, and a private chat shows the person's username, or private chat when there is none. On every other row that line is the tooltip of the preview, and the info panel shows the member count or the kind of chat under the chat's name. A group's username and the chat's Telegram id are in the info panel.

When you can see more than one Telegram account, each row carries a tag with the account's label, in the style of Telegram's folder tags: each account keeps its own colour. The chat header names the account after the member count. In a group or channel that more than one archived account holds or writes in, a message from one of those accounts names it before its time, in the colour of its tag. A private chat between two archived accounts is one row per account, each drawn from that account's side, as in the Telegram apps. See Multiple accounts.

Under the archive's name the sidebar says how fresh the archive is:

The button beside it, a list with a small clock, opens What changed. The three lines open the main menu.

Search¶

One field at the top of the sidebar searches chats and messages together. Results appear 300 ms after you stop typing.

• Chats match on title, first name, last name or username.
• Messages use full-text search that matches the start of words. The newest match comes first. Results load 20 at a time as you scroll, and the list stops at 5,000 with "Showing the first 5,000 matches".

Use Up and Down to move through both sections, Enter to open a result, and Esc to clear the field. A second Esc leaves the field.

A hit found in a voice transcript carries a small transcript mark and the word "transcript". A voice message with no caption reads "Recording · matched in its transcript". A hit on a message deleted in Telegram carries a trash mark and "deleted".

If the archive has no full-text index yet, the message section says so. The index is created by the database migrations, which shipped in 8.3.0. The backup image applies them when its container starts. On a pip install, run telegram-archive migrate. A SQLite build without FTS5 keeps the older substring search.

You can paste a Telegram link into the field. A t.me/c/<id>/<msg> or t.me/<username>/<msg> link opens that message when the chat is in the archive. Otherwise the sidebar says "That link points at a chat this archive does not hold".

Inside an open chat, the search button in the chat header opens a field that searches that chat only, with the same 300 ms delay. On a phone the field covers the header. Press Esc or the close button to clear it.

Reading messages¶

The chat header shows the member count, for example 24 members or 4,812 subscribers. When the archive has no count, it shows what kind of chat it is, such as private chat. Inside a forum topic the header shows the topic's name, with the forum and its message count under it.

Messages from one sender in a row form a run. In a group, the sender's name sits on the first bubble and their photo beside the last. A run ends when someone else writes, at a new day, or when the same sender writes again more than 15 minutes later.

Text¶

Messages keep their Telegram formatting: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, code, preformatted blocks, quotes and spoilers. Click a spoiler, or focus it and press Enter or Space, to reveal it.

Only http, https and tg links are clickable. Mentions are highlighted. Web addresses that start with http:// or https:// become links even without formatting. Email addresses become links when Telegram marked them as such.

A #hashtag or $CASHTAG opens a tag view with three tabs: This chat, My messages and All chats.

Replies and forwards¶

A reply shows a quote of the message it answers: the sender's name and one line of the text, beside a bar in the quote colour. Click the quote to jump to the original. When the original was deleted in Telegram, a small trash follows the name; the archive still has its text, so the quote shows it.

A forward shows "Forwarded from" and the source on two plain lines. When the source chat is also in the archive, a link icon follows its name. Click the header to open the original message.

Albums¶

Photos and videos sent together render as one grid:

The caption comes from whichever item carries it. The viewer renders only the first message of an album and does not show reactions on the other messages.

Media¶

Photos, videos and GIFs take the size Telegram Desktop gives them. The picture is scaled down to fit 430 px each way. A GIF fits 320 px. On a phone the limit is three quarters of the screen width, and in a narrow window the box is never wider than a bubble may be there. A picture is at least 100 px each way, and at least 200 px wide when its bubble also holds a name, a caption, a reply, a forward, reactions or an edit mark. Only these minimums make the box larger than the picture: a 50 px picture is drawn at 100 px, as in Telegram Desktop. The caption wraps under the picture, and a long name is cut, so the bubble is as wide as the picture.

The box comes from the size the archive stored with the file, so the chat does not move while pictures load. A picture that would lose more than a quarter of its height to fill its box, or any of its width, is drawn whole on a plain tint instead of cut: a panorama, or a small picture in a 200 px bubble. A photo stored without its size, which releases before 7.32.0 did for photos from the full pass, shows a 4:3 box until the file loads, and then takes its real shape; check-media --repair stores the size from the file. An album is 400 px wide.

• Round videos play in place as a circle, muted, while they are on screen. Click one to turn the sound on or off. They never open in the lightbox.
• GIFs loop while they are on screen and pause when you scroll away.
• Stickers show at Telegram's size, at most 200 px wide and 192 px tall, with no bubble. A .webp sticker is a picture. An animated sticker (.tgs) and a video sticker (.webm) loop while they are on screen and stop when you scroll away, as in the Telegram apps. At most four animated stickers play at once. The newest to come into view play first, and the others hold still until one stops. Click, tap or hover a sticker that holds still to play it, or focus it and press Enter. With reduced motion turned on in your system, stickers hold their first frame and a click plays one once. Safari and every browser on iPhone and iPad cannot draw the clear background of a video sticker, so there it shows the text "Video sticker". An animated sticker in a browser too old to unpack it shows "Animated sticker". When your login may download files, that text is a link that downloads the sticker.
• Polls and quizzes show each answer with a percentage bar and the total votes, as the archive last saw them. A closed poll reads Final results. When the votes differ from the first capture, a quiet "updated" and the time the archive saw them follow the poll's kind; hover it for the full date. The first capture is kept.
• Locations, venues, live locations and shared contacts show as cards. See Locations and contacts.
• Dice, invoices, stories, giveaways and games show as a chip.
• Link previews show the archived card with site name, title, description and image. When Telegram changed the card after the first capture, the newest card is shown with a quiet "updated" line and the time the archive saw it.

Locations and contacts¶

A location, a venue, a live location and a shared contact each show as a card in the bubble, the way the Telegram apps draw them.

• Map. When the archive kept the map picture of a location, a venue or a live location, the card shows it on top, with the pin on the point, the way the Telegram apps do. The map picture is explained below.
• Location. A pin, the word Location, the coordinates to six decimals and, when Telegram sent it, how accurate the point is (± 25 m).
• Venue. The place's name on one line and its address on up to two.
• Live location. The sender's picture in the pin and when the archive last saw a position, for example Last position, updated yesterday at 20:14. While the sharing period has not run out, a second line says until when, or Sharing until turned off. The archive does not follow a live share as it moves, so the card never says the share is live now.
• Contact. The initials in a coloured circle, the name and the phone number. The phone button calls the number on a device that can, and the copy button copies it.

Click a location, venue or live location card to open the place on OpenStreetMap in a new tab. OpenStreetMap needs no account, its pages carry no ads or ad trackers, and its map data is open. The viewer loads no map tiles and sends nothing anywhere until you click, so the page you open is the only one that sees the coordinates. The copy button beside the card copies the coordinates instead.

The map picture. The Telegram apps draw a location as a small map that Telegram's own servers render for the point. The backup asks Telegram for the same picture once, when it first stores a location, a venue or a live location, and keeps it as that message's media file. The viewer serves it from the archive like any other file, so no map server and no other third party sees the point, and the picture still shows after Telegram stops serving it. It is 640 by 480 pixels, at the zoom Telegram uses, with the pin drawn by the viewer over the centre.

The picture follows the media rules: DOWNLOAD_MEDIA=false and a chat in SKIP_MEDIA_CHAT_IDS fetch none, and neither does the listener with LISTEN_NEW_MESSAGES_MEDIA=false. A login without downloads gets the card without the picture. When Telegram serves no picture for a point, or the picture fails to load, the card shows the pin and the lines as before. When the backup reads a live location again at a new position, it keeps the picture of that position as well and shows it, as the Telegram apps show the latest position. The earlier picture stays on disk. The listener updates the position in the text but takes no new picture, so until the backup reads the message again the picture can show an earlier position than the line under it. Messages archived before this release get their picture from backfill-details --apply.

A card says Location unavailable when Telegram sent the location without a point. A message archived before the archive kept these details shows the card with Details not archived and no link, until backfill-details reads it from Telegram again. An older release left an empty placeholder file on some of these messages; the viewer ignores it and never offers it as a download, and the same command clears the leftover path. A poll archived without its details shows a Poll chip with Details not archived, and the same command fills it in.

A login without downloads still sees the coordinates and phone numbers: they are the message's content, like its text.

When a file is not in the archive, a placeholder takes its place in the same shape: a photo, a video or a GIF takes the box the file would take, a round video its circle, and a voice message, an audio or a document its file row. A ring in the middle holds a sign for the reason, and two lines say what it is and why, with its size when the archive knows it, for example 24 MB · over the download limit. The ring is not a button: nothing downloads from here. A file missing from the archive disk, the one fault among the reasons, shows an amber disc instead. Why media is missing in the viewer lists each reason and the setting behind it. In a box too short for the ring above the two lines, such as a panorama on a phone, the lines sit beside a smaller ring, and the second line gives the reason alone, without the size, on up to two lines.

Voice messages and other audio can carry a transcript that opens under the player. See Voice transcription.

Reactions, edits and deletions¶

Reactions show as chips with the emoji and its count. A custom emoji, the premium kind from an emoji pack, is drawn as its picture once the archive has fetched its file: within about five minutes when the listener saw it, otherwise after the next backup run, and an animated one moves while it is on screen. At most three animated custom emoji move at once, apart from the four stickers, and under reduced motion they hold their first frame. Until the file is there, or in a browser that cannot play its kind (Safari and browsers on iPhone and iPad draw no video emoji), the chip shows the ordinary emoji Telegram gives as its meaning, or a theatre-mask placeholder when the archive does not know it yet. Copying or selecting the chip gives that ordinary emoji too. An emoji Telegram draws in the colour of the text shows its ordinary emoji. In the reactions taken back and in What changed, a custom emoji shows its first frame and does not move.

A custom emoji inside a message's text is drawn the same way, at the size of the text's emoji. Copying the text gives the ordinary emoji in its place. In the edit history, an animated or video custom emoji shows its first frame and does not move.

A reaction taken back stays in the archive. After the live chips, a quieter chip with no fill and a dashed edge holds an undo arrow and how many reactions were taken back. Click or tap it, or reach it with Tab and press Enter, to show them: each emoji with how many went and when the archive noticed it gone, for example "1 · 17:33", or "1 · Sep 2, 20:55" when that was on a later day. Click it again to hide them. The time is when the backup or the listener saw the reaction missing, not when it was taken back, and the archive does not know who took it back: it stores counts per emoji. "Taken back" covers every way a reaction leaves Telegram's count: the person removed it, their account was deleted, or an admin turned that reaction off for the chat. A count that drops without reaching zero is listed too, as how many went of how many there were: "2 of 7 · 11:14". A reaction taken back and given again stays in the list with when the archive saw it again: "1 · 11:08, back 11:12". Each emoji shows its latest drop. The archive keeps every state it saw, and the export carries them all.

An edited message shows a small pencil before its time, with the number of earlier texts the archive kept: a pencil and "2" before 08:52 means two earlier versions. The time is still the time it was sent. A message Telegram marks as edited but whose earlier text the archive never saw shows the pencil alone. A message archived before 9.0 can show the pencil alone for a reaction, because Telegram moves the edit time when the reactions change; backfill-details removes those pencils. The pencil's name, read by a screen reader and shown when you peek, gives the time of the last edit by Telegram's clock, for example "Edited at 08:57, 2 earlier versions kept", or "Edited on Oct 1 at 09:05" when the edit came on a later day.

Rest the pointer on the pencil, reach it with Tab, or press and hold it on a phone, to peek at the text before the last edit, with the time it was written and the words that edit removed struck through. See all 3 versions opens the history. The peek closes when you move away, tap elsewhere or press Esc.

Click the pencil to open the Edit history. On a wide screen it opens beside the chat, which stays readable, and the message it belongs to is highlighted there. On a phone it opens as a sheet from the bottom, with the message above it. The versions run down a timeline, oldest first: "08:52 Sent", "08:54 Edit 1 · 2 min later", "08:57 Edit 2, current · 3 min later", with the date when an edit came on another day. Each text sits on a card, the current one tinted, with its own formatting, the way the bubble drew it then. The words each edit added are underlined on a green tint and the words it removed are struck through, and a key under the header says so. An edit that changed only the formatting, such as a word made bold, says "formatting only". The archive can miss edits: the sync, a backup or an import reads only the text current at that moment, so several edits between two reads leave one version, and a message archived after it was edited has no earlier text. When a version came from one of those, or was kept before the archive recorded where each version came from, the header says "at least 3 edits" and the edits drop their numbers. When the first text the archive kept was already an edit, the first card also reads "First seen, already edited". The listener sees each edit only while it runs: edits made while it was away reach it as one, and the numbers cannot show that. It lists up to 100 earlier texts. Esc or the cross closes it, and focus goes back to the pencil. A message with the pencil alone opens the history too, which says the archive did not see an earlier version.

Telegram lets a sender replace the photo or file of a message. The archive keeps the old one and downloads the new one beside it, and the bubble shows the new one. In the edit history the version that had the old media shows it above its text, a thumbnail for a photo, "Earlier video" or "Earlier audio" for those, and "Earlier file" with its name for anything else, each of which opens the file; the current entry then shows the current media too, so you can compare them. An edit that replaced the media and kept the caption is an edit with the same text. With the listener running, a chat open while the edit arrives shows the new media at once, for an older message too and while a search, a filter or the pinned messages are open. Without the listener it shows once the chat reloads. A login without downloads sees the kind of media, not the file.

To see every edited message of a chat, open More actions and choose Edited messages, under Deleted messages. The item shows the chat's count and is hidden when the chat has none. It opens the chat search in an Edited only mode, the same way as Deleted only: the chat shows only its edited messages, newest first, with their days, each headed "Edited · 08:57" and Show in chat. The search field narrows them further, and the pressed Edited only chip, the search's close button and Esc leave the mode. On a phone, the Edited messages row of the chat's info panel does the same. A message counts as edited when Telegram marks it or the archive kept an earlier version of it, so the count, the list and the pencils agree. Telegram also moves a message's edit time when only its reactions change, and flags that edit as one not to show. A message with such an edit and no earlier text kept gets no pencil and is not counted, as in Telegram's own apps.

Deleted messages¶

A deleted message stays in the chat, folded to one line in its place. The line holds a trash, what was deleted, the time and Show. What was deleted reads "Deleted message", "Deleted photo", "Deleted video", "Deleted voice message", "Deleted sticker" or "Deleted file". The line sits on the message's side and takes a red tint, so a deletion stands out while you scroll. In a group it names the sender at the start of a run; on a phone the avatar beside it does.

Show opens the message with its text in full. The bubble keeps the red tint, and the head of the bubble reads "Deleted · 21:59", at the end of the sender's line or on a line of its own. Hide folds it again. The time in the corner of the bubble is still the time it was sent. The viewer remembers what you opened until you reload the page. A message you reach by a jump opens by itself, whether the jump came from a reply quote, Go to message, a search hit, a link to the message or Show in chat. While the chat search is on, every message it finds shows open.

The deletion time is when the archive noticed the deletion. Telegram does not say when a message was deleted, and the tooltip says so. The listener notices within seconds; the backup's check notices at its next run, so the time can be days later. When it falls on another day than the message, the date shows too: "Deleted · Sep 29, 21:59".

On a photo with nothing else, the header rides the top corner of the picture. An album with some pictures deleted keeps its live pictures in view and reads "Picture deleted" at its head; it folds only when all of it was deleted. A reply to a deleted message keeps its quote, with a small trash after the name. The info panel shows the deletion as a fact, "Deleted in Telegram" with its date.

To see every deletion of a chat, open More actions, the three dots in the chat header, and choose Deleted messages. The item shows the chat's count and is hidden when the chat has none. It opens the chat search in a Deleted only mode: the chat shows only its deleted messages, open, with their days, and the search field narrows them further. Each one has Show in chat, which leaves the mode and goes to the message in the chat around it. The pressed Deleted only chip under the header removes the filter; the search's close button and Esc leave too. On a phone, the Deleted messages row of the chat's info panel does the same.

The archive only learns about deletions when the listener runs with LISTEN_DELETIONS=true or the backup runs with SYNC_DELETIONS_EDITS=true. Both are off by default. With DELETION_MODE=soft, the default, the row is kept and marked. With hard it is removed.

Service messages¶

Joins, title changes and other chat events show as centred pills. Click the name of the person who did it to open their details. An event deleted in Telegram ends with "· deleted".

When a group was converted to a supergroup, a banner says "This group continues as a supergroup" or "Migrated from <title>".

Moving through time¶

Pinned messages¶

A bar under the chat header shows the current pinned message. When more than one message is pinned, it reads "Pinned message #2" and its line splits into one segment per pin, up to four, with the one shown in the accent colour. A pinned photo or file with no text reads "Photo", "Video" and so on. Click the text to scroll to that message and move the bar to the next pin. This only works for a pinned message already loaded in the pane. For older pins, click the list button to open the view of every pinned message, titled for example "3 pinned messages".

Jump to the newest message¶

A round button with a down arrow appears in the bottom right corner. It shows when you scroll more than 200 px above the newest message, or when new messages arrive that you have not seen. A badge counts the unseen messages, up to 99+. Click it to return to the newest message. New messages that arrive while you read never move the view.

Jump to a date¶

While you scroll, a pill at the top of the pane shows the day you are looking at. It fades away 1.2 seconds after you stop. Click it, or any date separator, to open Jump to date, a month calendar. Days that have messages are in bold text; days without are grey. A grey day still opens: the jump lands on the next message after it and says so. Today has a ring and the day you are viewing is filled. One click on a day jumps there and closes the calendar. Click the month's name to see the year's twelve months, with the year between two arrows, and pick a month from there. First message jumps to the oldest message the archive holds. The latest date you can pick is today in VIEWER_TIMEZONE.

The arrow keys move between days, Page Up and Page Down between months, and with Shift between years. Enter jumps and Esc closes. While the calendar checks which days hold messages, it says "Checking dates…". If the check fails, it says so. On a phone the calendar is a bottom sheet.

At the top of the loaded history the pane says "Nothing older in the archive", and when the archive knows it, the date of the first message. The archive can start later than the chat itself.

Links to a message¶

Every message has an address of the form /?chat=<ref>&msg=<id>. Opening it loads the chat around that message.

To get the link, select the message with the info panel open, or open the sender's details, and click Copy message link. A notice says "Link copied". On a plain http address the browser does not allow copying, so the link appears in the notice instead.

The link names the chat by its chat ref, not its Telegram chat id. A chat ref is a random 22-character handle that never changes.

Forum topics¶

Opening a forum shows its topics first, under a row with the forum's name and how many topics it has. Each topic has its icon and its message count. A closed topic has a lock before its title, and a pinned one a pin at the right end of its second line, as in Telegram. Topic 1 is General. When the archive holds no topics for the forum, View all messages opens the whole chat.

Shared media¶

The Shared Media Gallery button in the chat header opens the chat's files in three tabs:

A tab with nothing in it is left out.

Items load 50 at a time, and the next 50 load as you reach the end. A Load more button at the end does the same, for when the Voice filter hides a whole page. Photo and video previews load a few at a time in grid order, for the tiles of every page.

A photo or video whose message was deleted in Telegram carries a dark pill in its tile's bottom left corner, the same pill a photo's time uses in the chat, with a trash and the word "deleted". Small tiles show the trash alone. Hover the tile to see when it was deleted.

Photos, videos and GIFs open in the lightbox. It shows the sender, the date and the caption, and "deleted" after the date when Telegram deleted the message, whether you opened it from the chat or from here. Show in chat closes it and goes to the message in the chat around it, leaving the pinned-only view or an in-chat search if one is open. A round video tile jumps to its message. Press Esc to close the lightbox and Left or Right to move between items. Files have a download button and a go-to-message button. Download buttons are hidden for no-download logins.

How thumbnails are made and cached is on Media downloads.

Info panel¶

Click the chat's name in the header to open the info panel, for a private chat, a group, a channel or a topic alike. On a phone the chat's photo beside the name opens it too. When the panel is already open, the name scrolls it back up to the chat. The chat information button opens and closes it. When you close the panel with the close button or Escape, focus goes back to what opened it. When you close it with the chat information button, focus stays there.

The info panel shows the open chat, in rows the way Telegram's info page writes them:

• avatar, name, and member or subscriber count
• Earlier photos: the profile photos the archive recorded before the current one. Each circle's tooltip says when the archive saw it. Click one, or the avatar, to page through them all in the lightbox, the current photo first.
• description or bio, username and Telegram ID
• the account tags, when more than one account is visible
• In the archive: messages, media files, Media size (every media file of the chat, downloaded or not), Deleted messages and Edited messages (deleted in Telegram or edited, which the archive kept), and the oldest message. Click Deleted messages or Edited messages to list them in the chat, and the oldest message to jump to it.
• shortcuts into the shared media

With the panel open, click a message to select it. On a touch screen, or in a window under 768 px wide, tap a message's time or its "deleted" mark instead: the panel opens on that message. The panel then also shows:

• sender and sent time
• when it was edited; with earlier versions the row opens the edit history
• when Telegram deleted it, with "The archive kept this message."
• pinned state
• the message it replies to and the forward source
• where its transcript came from
• Copy message link
• Technical details, closed until you open it: the message id, the album id and the sender id
• its files, each with a thumbnail, its type, length and size, the reason when the archive does not have it, and a download button

With the panel open, Up and Down move the selection to the next message, and Esc closes the panel.

The lightbox for earlier photos counts them, for example "2 of 3", and each caption says when the archive saw that photo. The archive keeps every profile photo it sees, so a photo changed or removed in Telegram stays here.

The master login also sees each file's Archive path with a copy button. Other logins do not.

Open and Show in folder¶

Two more buttons, Open and Show in folder, appear for the master login when the viewer host sets MEDIA_OPEN_CMD or MEDIA_OPEN_PATH_CMD. Use them only when the viewer runs directly on your own computer, outside Docker.

Each variable holds a shell command. The viewer replaces %PATH%, %DIR% and %FILENAME% with the shell-quoted file path, its folder and its name. Open only accepts images, videos, audio and PDF files.

# macOS example for a native run
export MEDIA_OPEN_CMD='open %PATH%'
export MEDIA_OPEN_PATH_CMD='open -R %PATH%'

Audio player¶

Playing a voice message or an audio file opens one player bar for the whole app. It has previous and next buttons, a seek bar and speeds of 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x and 2x. The speed buttons are hidden on screens narrower than 640 px.

Voice and music each keep their own speed. Playback continues when you switch chats. When one item ends, the player moves on to the next audio in the chat.

No-download logins cannot play audio. Their play buttons are dimmed, the duration line says "playback off for this login" ("this link" through a share link), and the player bar does not appear.

What changed¶

The list button with a small clock in the sidebar header opens What changed, after Telegram's Recent Actions. A dot on the button means there are entries newer than the last time you opened it in this browser, and the main menu's What changed row counts them. On a wide screen the feed takes the chat's place and the chat list stays usable: opening a chat leaves the feed. On a phone it is a page with a back arrow.

The feed lists deletions, edits, new voice transcripts and, when you ask for them, reactions taken back, newest first, grouped by day. Each entry is a line such as "Deleted in Weekend Hikers · 17:57" over the message, drawn as a bubble with its sender's name. The line always names the chat; for a private chat that is the other person, even when they sent the message. A deleted message carries its deleted mark. An edited one shows its earlier text as a quote above the current text, and with more than one earlier version, a button that opens the edit history. A transcript shows its text under a recording row. A reaction taken back shows the bubble's dashed chip after the text, with the emoji and how many went ("2 of 7" when some stayed), and "taken back". Click a bubble to open the message in its chat, or the chat's name to open the chat. Older entries load as you reach the end.

The filter button in the feed's header picks what to show, Deleted, Edited, Transcripts and Reactions taken back, and the period: Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, Last 30 days or All time. Reactions taken back stays unticked until you tick it, because reactions come and go far more often than the rest and would bury them. The browser remembers the kinds, and the period of the feed for every chat. With nothing ticked, nothing loads. When few entries match, the feed stops loading by itself after three pages that add nothing, and Load older carries on. No-download logins see no transcripts.

To see what changed in one chat, open More actions in the chat header and choose What changed in this chat, under Edited messages. On a phone, use the What changed in this chat row of the chat's info panel. The feed opens with the chat as a pressed chip under its header and lists only that chat's changes, with the same kinds, over All time. A period you pick there holds while the chat's feed is open. It is not remembered, and it does not change the period of the feed for every chat. For a channel or group that more than one account holds, it lists what any of those accounts captured, each change once, the same entries the feed for every chat shows for it. A private chat lists only the conversation of the account you opened it from. The chip's cross widens the feed back to every chat. The Deleted messages and Edited messages rows of the info panel and of More actions keep opening the chat's own Deleted only and Edited only modes, which show each message in the chat around it and let the search narrow them; What changed in this chat is the way to the feed. The sidebar button and the main menu always open it for every chat. The dot and the main menu's count clear only when you read the feed for every chat.

Deletions appear here only when the archive learns about them: the listener runs with LISTEN_DELETIONS=true or the backup runs with SYNC_DELETIONS_EDITS=true. Both are off by default. With DELETION_MODE=hard a deleted row is removed instead of kept.

Export a chat¶

Export chat, in the chat header's More actions menu, downloads the open chat. On a phone it is in the info panel. Pick the format first: JSON (data) for scripts and other tools, or HTML page (opens offline) for reading in a browser. From reads "First message" and To reads "Today" until you click one and pick a day in the calendar; the cross beside a day clears it. Both days are included. The file downloads in place.

The JSON file is named <title>_export.json. It holds the chat, the filters you used and the messages. Messages deleted in Telegram are included and marked with is_deleted and deleted_at, and each message carries its edit_date, its media under media and, under versions, every earlier text and media the archive kept, and under reaction_history every state of its reactions the archive saw. Media is listed by name, type and size, so each transcript points at a media in the file. The fields are in Export. It holds no media files.

Export as HTML¶

The HTML export is a ZIP named <title>_export.zip. Unzip it and open index.html in its ChatExport_<title> folder. It needs no server and no network, and the pages carry no JavaScript. The folder looks like a Telegram Desktop export: the messages are in messages.html, messages2.html and so on, and each media type has its own folder. index.html shows the chat, the days you picked, when the export was made, the media options, how many files were left out and why, and a link to each page with its first and last day.

Pages show messages the way the viewer does: formatting, replies that link to the message they answer, forwards, reactions, polls, locations and contacts. Messages deleted in Telegram stay, marked with the day the archive saw them go. An edited message is marked as edited, with its earlier versions behind Earlier versions. Transcripts appear under their voice or video message. A page ends after 1000 messages, or after 40 players so a phone can still play them.

With HTML chosen, the dialog has three more settings:

• Media. The types to copy into the ZIP: Photos, Videos, Voice messages, Video messages, GIFs, Stickers and Files. All but Files start ticked, because files are usually where most of the space goes. With nothing ticked, the pages hold text only.
• Skip files larger than a number of MB, from 1 to 3900. It starts at 50 and applies to each file.
• Play media inside the page. On, videos, GIFs, voice messages and audio play in the page, and a link to each file sits beside its player. Off, each of them is a card with its name, length and size that links to the file, as Telegram Desktop exports it. It starts on.

A file that is not in the ZIP keeps its card, without a link, and says why: "Not included in this export" for a type you did not tick, "Larger than the N MB limit of this export", "Not downloaded to the archive" for media the backup never downloaded, or "Missing from the archive's storage" when the file is gone from disk. Animated .tgs stickers show as a card, because browsers cannot play them. A reply to a message the export does not hold says "In reply to a message outside this export".

A large chat with media makes a large ZIP. It is built while it downloads, so the download shows no total size.

No-download logins cannot export, and have no More actions menu.

Without the viewer, telegram-archive export-chat writes the same JSON file or the same ZIP from the command line.

Main menu¶

The three lines at the top of the sidebar open the main menu. It names the signed-in login and its role (Owner for the master login, Viewer, or Shared link), with "downloads off" for a no-download login. Then come What changed, Statistics, Theme (see Themes and wallpaper), Notifications (see Live updates and notifications), and for the master login Archive status and Admin settings. Log out ends the menu. On a phone the menu is a bottom sheet. The arrow keys move between its rows and Esc closes it.

Statistics¶

Statistics, in the main menu, shows the number of chats, messages and media files and when the numbers were calculated, as Telegram's Storage Usage lists its figures. Counts show every digit, and sizes read in KB, MB and GB. For the master login the last row is Disk use, the media and the database together, and it opens the Disk use section of Archive status. Other logins read Media on disk there instead. A login restricted to some chats reads "For the chats you can see." Before the numbers are first calculated, the page says so.

The numbers are cached. These recalculate them:

• The viewer, once a day at STATS_CALCULATION_HOUR in VIEWER_TIMEZONE. The default hour is 3.
• The viewer, once at startup, if the numbers were never calculated.
• The backup, after each run.
• The master login, on request, through POST /api/stats/refresh.

Logins restricted to some chats see counts for their own chats only. The message, media and size figures in a chat's info panel are cached for 60 seconds.

SHOW_STATS=false hides the Statistics row. The statistics API still answers.

Archive status¶

The master login has Archive status in the main menu. It opens with one line: "Nothing needs attention", or the problem, for example "The last backup did not finish". "A listener is not running" means a listener started and then stopped without shutting down, as when the backup container is killed or crashes. A listener stopped on purpose reads Off and is not a problem here. A second line says what runs now, for example "Backup idle · transcripts off". Something switched off is a choice, not a fault, so it never turns the first line amber. Then:

On a phone¶

Below 768 px wide, the layout changes:

• The sidebar hides once a chat is open, and the chat takes the full width.
• A back button in the chat header returns to the chat list.
• The info panel covers the whole screen.
• Header buttons get 44 px touch targets, and the menus and dialogs open as bottom sheets.
• The resize handles are hidden.

Install as an app¶

Browsers that support it can install the viewer as an app. It then opens in its own window without the browser toolbar.

It does not work offline. The app needs the viewer to be reachable, as the web page does.

After you upgrade the viewer, reload any open tabs or app windows. An open page keeps using the old version until it reloads.

Keyboard¶

There are no single-letter shortcuts such as j and k.