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pyTelegramBotAPI

A simple, but extensible Python implementation for the Telegram Bot API.

Both synchronous and asynchronous.

Supported Bot API version: Supported Bot API version

Official documentation

Official ru documentation

Contents

Getting started

This API is tested with Python 3.9-3.13 and Pypy 3. There are two ways to install the library:

  • Installation using pip (a Python package manager):
$ pip install pyTelegramBotAPI
  • Installation from source (requires git):
$ pip install git+https://github.com/eternnoir/pyTelegramBotAPI.git

It is generally recommended to use the first option.

While the API is production-ready, it is still under development and it has regular updates, do not forget to update it regularly by calling

pip install pytelegrambotapi --upgrade

Writing your first bot

Prerequisites

It is presumed that you have obtained an API token with @BotFather. We will call this token TOKEN. Furthermore, you have basic knowledge of the Python programming language and more importantly the Telegram Bot API.

A simple echo bot

The TeleBot class (defined in _init_.py) encapsulates all API calls in a single class. It provides functions such as send_xyz (send_message, send_document etc.) and several ways to listen for incoming messages.

Create a file called echo_bot.py. Then, open the file and create an instance of the TeleBot class.

import telebot

bot = telebot.TeleBot("TOKEN", parse_mode=None) # You can set parse_mode by default. HTML or MARKDOWN

Note: Make sure to actually replace TOKEN with your own API token.

After that declaration, we need to register some so-called message handlers. Message handlers define filters which a message must pass. If a message passes the filter, the decorated function is called and the incoming message is passed as an argument.

Let's define a message handler which handles incoming /start and /help commands.

@bot.message_handler(commands=['start', 'help'])
def send_welcome(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, "Howdy, how are you doing?")

A function which is decorated by a message handler can have an arbitrary name, however, it must have only one parameter (the message).

Let's add another handler:

@bot.message_handler(func=lambda m: True)
def echo_all(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, message.text)

This one echoes all incoming text messages back to the sender. It uses a lambda function to test a message. If the lambda returns True, the message is handled by the decorated function. Since we want all messages to be handled by this function, we simply always return True.

Note: all handlers are tested in the order in which they were declared

We now have a basic bot which replies a static message to "/start" and "/help" commands and which echoes the rest of the sent messages. To start the bot, add the following to our source file:

bot.infinity_polling()

Alright, that's it! Our source file now looks like this:

import telebot

bot = telebot.TeleBot("YOUR_BOT_TOKEN")

@bot.message_handler(commands=['start', 'help'])
def send_welcome(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, "Howdy, how are you doing?")

@bot.message_handler(func=lambda message: True)
def echo_all(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, message.text)

bot.infinity_polling()

To start the bot, simply open up a terminal and enter python echo_bot.py to run the bot! Test it by sending commands ('/start' and '/help') and arbitrary text messages.

General API Documentation

Types

All types are defined in types.py. They are all completely in line with the Telegram API's definition of the types, except for the Message's from field, which is renamed to from_user (because from is a Python reserved token). Thus, attributes such as message_id can be accessed directly with message.message_id. Note that message.chat can be either an instance of User or GroupChat (see How can I distinguish a User and a GroupChat in message.chat?).

The Message object also has a content_typeattribute, which defines the type of the Message. content_type can be one of the following strings: text, audio, document, animation, game, photo, sticker, video, video_note, voice, location, contact, venue, dice, new_chat_members, left_chat_member, new_chat_title, new_chat_photo, delete_chat_photo, group_chat_created, supergroup_chat_created, channel_chat_created, migrate_to_chat_id, migrate_from_chat_id, pinned_message, invoice, successful_payment, connected_website, poll, passport_data, proximity_alert_triggered, video_chat_scheduled, video_chat_started, video_chat_ended, video_chat_participants_invited, web_app_data, message_auto_delete_timer_changed, forum_topic_created, forum_topic_closed, forum_topic_reopened, forum_topic_edited, general_forum_topic_hidden, general_forum_topic_unhidden, write_access_allowed, user_shared, chat_shared, story.

You can use some types in one function. Example:

content_types=["text", "sticker", "pinned_message", "photo", "audio"]

Methods

All API methods are located in the TeleBot class. They are renamed to follow common Python naming conventions. E.g. getMe is renamed to get_me and sendMessage to send_message.

General use of the API

Outlined below are some general use cases of the API.

Message handlers

A message handler is a function that is decorated with the message_handler decorator of a TeleBot instance. Message handlers consist of one or multiple filters. Each filter must return True for a certain message in order for a message handler to become eligible to handle that message. A message handler is declared in the following way (provided bot is an instance of TeleBot):

@bot.message_handler(filters)
def function_name(message):
	bot.reply_to(message, "This is a message handler")

function_name is not bound to any restrictions. Any function name is permitted with message handlers. The function must accept at most one argument, which will be the message that the function must handle. filters is a list of keyword arguments. A filter is declared in the following manner: name=argument. One handler may have multiple filters. TeleBot supports the following filters:

name argument(s) Condition
content_types list of strings (default ['text']) True if message.content_type is in the list of strings.
regexp a regular expression as a string True if re.search(regexp_arg) returns True and message.content_type == 'text' (See Python Regular Expressions)
commands list of strings True if message.content_type == 'text' and message.text starts with a command that is in the list of strings.
chat_types list of chat types True if message.chat.type in your filter
func a function (lambda or function reference) True if the lambda or function reference returns True

Here are some examples of using the filters and message handlers:

import telebot
bot = telebot.TeleBot("TOKEN")

# Handles all text messages that contains the commands '/start' or '/help'.
@bot.message_handler(commands=['start', 'help'])
def handle_start_help(message):
	pass

# Handles all sent documents and audio files
@bot.message_handler(content_types=['document', 'audio'])
def handle_docs_audio(message):
	pass

# Handles all text messages that match the regular expression
@bot.message_handler(regexp="SOME_REGEXP")
def handle_message(message):
	pass

# Handles all messages for which the lambda returns True
@bot.message_handler(func=lambda message: message.document.mime_type == 'text/plain', content_types=['document'])
def handle_text_doc(message):
	pass

# Which could also be defined as:
def test_message(message):
	return message.document.mime_type == 'text/plain'

@bot.message_handler(func=test_message, content_types=['document'])
def handle_text_doc(message):
	pass

# Handlers can be stacked to create a function which will be called if either message_handler is eligible
# This handler will be called if the message starts with '/hello' OR is some emoji
@bot.message_handler(commands=['hello'])
@bot.message_handler(func=lambda msg: msg.text.encode("utf-8") == SOME_FANCY_EMOJI)
def send_something(message):
    pass

Important: all handlers are tested in the order in which they were declared

Edited Message handler

Handle edited messages @bot.edited_message_handler(filters) # <- passes a Message type object to your function

Channel Post handler

Handle channel post messages @bot.channel_post_handler(filters) # <- passes a Message type object to your function

Edited Channel Post handler

Handle edited channel post messages @bot.edited_channel_post_handler(filters) # <- passes a Message type object to your function

Callback Query Handler

Handle callback queries

@bot.callback_query_handler(func=lambda call: True)
def test_callback(call): # <- passes a CallbackQuery type object to your function
    logger.info(call)

Shipping Query Handler

Handle shipping queries @bot.shipping_query_handler() # <- passes a ShippingQuery type object to your function

Pre Checkout Query Handler

Handle pre checkout queries @bot.pre_checkout_query_handler() # <- passes a PreCheckoutQuery type object to your function

Poll Handler

Handle poll updates @bot.poll_handler() # <- passes a Poll type object to your function

Poll Answer Handler

Handle poll answers @bot.poll_answer_handler() # <- passes a PollAnswer type object to your function

My Chat Member Handler

Handle updates of a the bot's member status in a chat @bot.my_chat_member_handler() # <- passes a ChatMemberUpdated type object to your function

Chat Member Handler

Handle updates of a chat member's status in a chat @bot.chat_member_handler() # <- passes a ChatMemberUpdated type object to your function Note: "chat_member" updates are not requested by default. If you want to allow all update types, set allowed_updates in bot.polling() / bot.infinity_polling() to util.update_types

Chat Join Request Handler

Handle chat join requests using: @bot.chat_join_request_handler() # <- passes ChatInviteLink type object to your function

Inline Mode

More information about Inline mode.

Inline handler

Now, you can use inline_handler to get inline queries in telebot.

@bot.inline_handler(lambda query: query.query == 'text')
def query_text(inline_query):
    # Query message is text

Chosen Inline handler

Use chosen_inline_handler to get chosen_inline_result in telebot. Don't forget to add the /setinlinefeedback command for @Botfather.

More information : collecting-feedback

@bot.chosen_inline_handler(func=lambda chosen_inline_result: True)
def test_chosen(chosen_inline_result):
    # Process all chosen_inline_result.

Answer Inline Query

@bot.inline_handler(lambda query: query.query == 'text')
def query_text(inline_query):
    try:
        r = types.InlineQueryResultArticle('1', 'Result', types.InputTextMessageContent('Result message.'))
        r2 = types.InlineQueryResultArticle('2', 'Result2', types.InputTextMessageContent('Result message2.'))
        bot.answer_inline_query(inline_query.id, [r, r2])
    except Exception as e:
        print(e)

Additional API features

Middleware Handlers

A middleware handler is a function that allows you to modify requests or the bot context as they pass through the Telegram to the bot. You can imagine middleware as a chain of logic connection handled before any other handlers are executed. Middleware processing is disabled by default, enable it by setting apihelper.ENABLE_MIDDLEWARE = True.

apihelper.ENABLE_MIDDLEWARE = True

@bot.middleware_handler(update_types=['message'])
def modify_message(bot_instance, message):
    # modifying the message before it reaches any other handler 
    message.another_text = message.text + ':changed'

@bot.message_handler(commands=['start'])
def start(message):
    # the message is already modified when it reaches message handler
    assert message.another_text == message.text + ':changed'

There are other examples using middleware handler in the examples/middleware directory.

Class-based middlewares

There are class-based middlewares. Basic class-based middleware looks like this:

class Middleware(BaseMiddleware):
    def __init__(self):
        self.update_types = ['message']
    def pre_process(self, message, data):
        data['foo'] = 'Hello' # just for example
        # we edited the data. now, this data is passed to handler.
        # return SkipHandler() -> this will skip handler
        # return CancelUpdate() -> this will cancel update
    def post_process(self, message, data, exception=None):
        print(data['foo'])
        if exception: # check for exception
            print(exception)

Class-based middleware should have two functions: post and pre process. So, as you can see, class-based middlewares work before and after handler execution. For more, check out in examples

Custom filters

Also, you can use built-in custom filters. Or, you can create your own filter.

Example of custom filter

Also, we have examples on them. Check this links:

You can check some built-in filters in source code

Example of filtering by id

Example of filtering by text

If you want to add some built-in filter, you are welcome to add it in custom_filters.py file.

Here is example of creating filter-class:

class IsAdmin(telebot.custom_filters.SimpleCustomFilter):
    # Class will check whether the user is admin or creator in group or not
    key='is_chat_admin'
    @staticmethod
    def check(message: telebot.types.Message):
        return bot.get_chat_member(message.chat.id,message.from_user.id).status in ['administrator','creator']
	
# To register filter, you need to use method add_custom_filter.
bot.add_custom_filter(IsAdmin())
	
# Now, you can use it in handler.
@bot.message_handler(is_chat_admin=True)
def admin_of_group(message):
	bot.send_message(message.chat.id, 'You are admin of this group!')

TeleBot

import telebot

TOKEN = '<token_string>'
tb = telebot.TeleBot(TOKEN)	#create a new Telegram Bot object

# Upon calling this function, TeleBot starts polling the Telegram servers for new messages.
# - interval: int (default 0) - The interval between polling requests
# - timeout: integer (default 20) - Timeout in seconds for long polling.
# - allowed_updates: List of Strings (default None) - List of update types to request 
tb.infinity_polling(interval=0, timeout=20)

# getMe
user = tb.get_me()

# setWebhook
tb.set_webhook(url="http://example.com", certificate=open('mycert.pem'))
# unset webhook
tb.remove_webhook()

# getUpdates
updates = tb.get_updates()
# or
updates = tb.get_updates(1234,100,20) #get_Updates(offset, limit, timeout):

# sendMessage
tb.send_message(chat_id, text)

# editMessageText
tb.edit_message_text(new_text, chat_id, message_id)

# forwardMessage
tb.forward_message(to_chat_id, from_chat_id, message_id)

# All send_xyz functions which can take a file as an argument, can also take a file_id instead of a file.
# sendPhoto
photo = open('/tmp/photo.png', 'rb')
tb.send_photo(chat_id, photo)
tb.send_photo(chat_id, "FILEID")

# sendAudio
audio = open('/tmp/audio.mp3', 'rb')
tb.send_audio(chat_id, audio)
tb.send_audio(chat_id, "FILEID")

## sendAudio with duration, performer and title.
tb.send_audio(CHAT_ID, file_data, 1, 'eternnoir', 'pyTelegram')

# sendVoice
voice = open('/tmp/voice.ogg', 'rb')
tb.send_voice(chat_id, voice)
tb.send_voice(chat_id, "FILEID")

# sendDocument
doc = open('/tmp/file.txt', 'rb')
tb.send_document(chat_id, doc)
tb.send_document(chat_id, "FILEID")

# sendSticker
sti = open('/tmp/sti.webp', 'rb')
tb.send_sticker(chat_id, sti)
tb.send_sticker(chat_id, "FILEID")

# sendVideo
video = open('/tmp/video.mp4', 'rb')
tb.send_video(chat_id, video)
tb.send_video(chat_id, "FILEID")

# sendVideoNote
videonote = open('/tmp/videonote.mp4', 'rb')
tb.send_video_note(chat_id, videonote)
tb.send_video_note(chat_id, "FILEID")

# sendLocation
tb.send_location(chat_id, lat, lon)

# sendChatAction
# action_string can be one of the following strings: 'typing', 'upload_photo', 'record_video', 'upload_video',
# 'record_audio', 'upload_audio', 'upload_document' or 'find_location'.
tb.send_chat_action(chat_id, action_string)

# getFile
# Downloading a file is straightforward
# Returns a File object
import requests
file_info = tb.get_file(file_id)

file = requests.get('https://api.telegram.org/file/bot{0}/{1}'.format(API_TOKEN, file_info.file_path))

Reply markup

All send_xyz functions of TeleBot take an optional reply_markup argument. This argument must be an instance of ReplyKeyboardMarkup, ReplyKeyboardRemove or ForceReply, which are defined in types.py.

from telebot import types

# Using the ReplyKeyboardMarkup class
# It's constructor can take the following optional arguments:
# - resize_keyboard: True/False (default False)
# - one_time_keyboard: True/False (default False)
# - selective: True/False (default False)
# - row_width: integer (default 3)
# row_width is used in combination with the add() function.
# It defines how many buttons are fit on each row before continuing on the next row.
markup = types.ReplyKeyboardMarkup(row_width=2)
itembtn1 = types.KeyboardButton('a')
itembtn2 = types.KeyboardButton('v')
itembtn3 = types.KeyboardButton('d')
markup.add(itembtn1, itembtn2, itembtn3)
tb.send_message(chat_id, "Choose one letter:", reply_markup=markup)

# or add KeyboardButton one row at a time:
markup = types.ReplyKeyboardMarkup()
itembtna = types.KeyboardButton('a')
itembtnv = types.KeyboardButton('v')
itembtnc = types.KeyboardButton('c')
itembtnd = types.KeyboardButton('d')
itembtne = types.KeyboardButton('e')
markup.row(itembtna, itembtnv)
markup.row(itembtnc, itembtnd, itembtne)
tb.send_message(chat_id, "Choose one letter:", reply_markup=markup)

The last example yields this result:

ReplyKeyboardMarkup

# ReplyKeyboardRemove: hides a previously sent ReplyKeyboardMarkup
# Takes an optional selective argument (True/False, default False)
markup = types.ReplyKeyboardRemove(selective=False)
tb.send_message(chat_id, message, reply_markup=markup)
# ForceReply: forces a user to reply to a message
# Takes an optional selective argument (True/False, default False)
markup = types.ForceReply(selective=False)
tb.send_message(chat_id, "Send me another word:", reply_markup=markup)

ForceReply:

ForceReply

Working with entities

This object represents one special entity in a text message. For example, hashtags, usernames, URLs, etc. Attributes:

  • type
  • url
  • offset
  • length
  • user

Here's an Example:message.entities[num].<attribute>
Here num is the entity number or order of entity in a reply, for if incase there are multiple entities in the reply/message.
message.entities returns a list of entities object.
message.entities[0].type would give the type of the first entity
Refer Bot Api for extra details

Advanced use of the API

Using local Bot API Sever

Since version 5.0 of the Bot API, you have the possibility to run your own Local Bot API Server. pyTelegramBotAPI also supports this feature.

from telebot import apihelper

apihelper.API_URL = "http://localhost:4200/bot{0}/{1}"

Important: Like described here, you have to log out your bot from the Telegram server before switching to your local API server. in pyTelegramBotAPI use bot.log_out()

Note: 4200 is an example port

Asynchronous TeleBot

New: There is an asynchronous implementation of telebot. To enable this behaviour, create an instance of AsyncTeleBot instead of TeleBot.

tb = telebot.AsyncTeleBot("TOKEN")

Now, every function that calls the Telegram API is executed in a separate asynchronous task. Using AsyncTeleBot allows you to do the following:

import telebot

tb = telebot.AsyncTeleBot("TOKEN")

@tb.message_handler(commands=['start'])
async def start_message(message):
	await bot.send_message(message.chat.id, 'Hello!')

See more in examples

Sending large text messages

Sometimes you must send messages that exceed 5000 characters. The Telegram API can not handle that many characters in one request, so we need to split the message in multiples. Here is how to do that using the API:

from telebot import util
large_text = open("large_text.txt", "rb").read()

# Split the text each 3000 characters.
# split_string returns a list with the splitted text.
splitted_text = util.split_string(large_text, 3000)

for text in splitted_text:
	tb.send_message(chat_id, text)

Or you can use the new smart_split function to get more meaningful substrings:

from telebot import util
large_text = open("large_text.txt", "rb").read()
# Splits one string into multiple strings, with a maximum amount of `chars_per_string` (max. 4096)
# Splits by last '\n', '. ' or ' ' in exactly this priority.
# smart_split returns a list with the splitted text.
splitted_text = util.smart_split(large_text, chars_per_string=3000)
for text in splitted_text:
	tb.send_message(chat_id, text)

Controlling the amount of Threads used by TeleBot

The TeleBot constructor takes the following optional arguments:

  • threaded: True/False (default True). A flag to indicate whether TeleBot should execute message handlers on it's polling Thread.

The listener mechanism

As an alternative to the message handlers, one can also register a function as a listener to TeleBot.

NOTICE: handlers won't disappear! Your message will be processed both by handlers and listeners. Also, it's impossible to predict which will work at first because of threading. If you use threaded=False, custom listeners will work earlier, after them handlers will be called. Example:

def handle_messages(messages):
	for message in messages:
		# Do something with the message
		bot.reply_to(message, 'Hi')

bot.set_update_listener(handle_messages)
bot.infinity_polling()

Using web hooks

When using webhooks telegram sends one Update per call, for processing it you should call process_new_messages([update.message]) when you recieve it.

There are some examples using webhooks in the examples/webhook_examples directory.

Logging

You can use the Telebot module logger to log debug info about Telebot. Use telebot.logger to get the logger of the TeleBot module. It is possible to add custom logging Handlers to the logger. Refer to the Python logging module page for more info.

import logging

logger = telebot.logger
telebot.logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # Outputs debug messages to console.

Proxy

For sync:

You can use proxy for request. apihelper.proxy object will use by call requests proxies argument.

from telebot import apihelper

apihelper.proxy = {'http':'http://127.0.0.1:3128'}

If you want to use socket5 proxy you need install dependency pip install requests[socks] and make sure, that you have the latest version of gunicorn, PySocks, pyTelegramBotAPI, requests and urllib3.

apihelper.proxy = {'https':'socks5://userproxy:password@proxy_address:port'}

For async:

from telebot import asyncio_helper

asyncio_helper.proxy = 'http://127.0.0.1:3128' #url

Testing

You can disable or change the interaction with real Telegram server by using

apihelper.CUSTOM_REQUEST_SENDER = your_handler

parameter. You can pass there your own function that will be called instead of requests.request.

For example:

def custom_sender(method, url, **kwargs):
    print("custom_sender. method: {}, url: {}, params: {}".format(method, url, kwargs.get("params")))
    result = util.CustomRequestResponse('{"ok":true,"result":{"message_id": 1, "date": 1, "chat": {"id": 1, "type": "private"}}}')
    return result

Then you can use API and proceed requests in your handler code.

apihelper.CUSTOM_REQUEST_SENDER = custom_sender
tb = TeleBot("test")
res = tb.send_message(123, "Test")

Result will be:

custom_sender. method: post, url: https://api.telegram.org/botololo/sendMessage, params: {'chat_id': '123', 'text': 'Test'}

API conformance limitations

AsyncTeleBot

Asynchronous version of telebot

We have a fully asynchronous version of TeleBot. This class is not controlled by threads. Asyncio tasks are created to execute all the stuff.

EchoBot

Echo Bot example on AsyncTeleBot:

# This is a simple echo bot using the decorator mechanism.
# It echoes any incoming text messages.

from telebot.async_telebot import AsyncTeleBot
import asyncio
bot = AsyncTeleBot('TOKEN')



# Handle '/start' and '/help'
@bot.message_handler(commands=['help', 'start'])
async def send_welcome(message):
    await bot.reply_to(message, """\
Hi there, I am EchoBot.
I am here to echo your kind words back to you. Just say anything nice and I'll say the exact same thing to you!\
""")


# Handle all other messages with content_type 'text' (content_types defaults to ['text'])
@bot.message_handler(func=lambda message: True)
async def echo_message(message):
    await bot.reply_to(message, message.text)


asyncio.run(bot.polling())

As you can see here, keywords are await and async.

Why should I use async?

Asynchronous tasks depend on processor performance. Many asynchronous tasks can run parallelly, while thread tasks will block each other.

Differences in AsyncTeleBot

AsyncTeleBot is asynchronous. It uses aiohttp instead of requests module.

Examples

See more examples in our examples folder

F.A.Q.

How can I distinguish a User and a GroupChat in message.chat?

Telegram Bot API support new type Chat for message.chat.

  • Check the type attribute in Chat object:
if message.chat.type == "private":
    # private chat message

if message.chat.type == "group":
	# group chat message

if message.chat.type == "supergroup":
	# supergroup chat message

if message.chat.type == "channel":
	# channel message

How can I handle reocurring ConnectionResetErrors?

Bot instances that were idle for a long time might be rejected by the server when sending a message due to a timeout of the last used session. Add apihelper.SESSION_TIME_TO_LIVE = 5 * 60 to your initialisation to force recreation after 5 minutes without any activity.

The Telegram Chat Group

Get help. Discuss. Chat.

Telegram Channel

Join the News channel. Here we will post releases and updates.

More examples

Code Template

Template is a ready folder that contains architecture of basic project. Here are some examples of template:

Bots using this library

Want to have your bot listed here? Just make a pull request. Only bots with public source code are accepted.

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Python Telegram bot api.

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