Forward a movie.
It saves itself.

A self-hosted Telegram downloader bot. Send it any file — a movie, a series, a document — and it saves it straight to your own storage. No 20 MB cloud cap, no monthly fees, no third-party servers.

Install in one command How it works

🐳 Docker🛰 MTProto — no size limit🔒 Self-hosted🏠 Runs on a Pi

Why self-host it

Your files, your disk, your rules.

🛰

No size limit

MTProto (Telethon) session instead of the bot cloud API — 2 GB movies download fine, not capped at 20 MB.

🔒

Private by default

Files go straight to your drive over Telegram's encrypted transport. No middleman server ever sees them.

💰

Free to run

One small container on the hardware you already own — a Raspberry Pi or any always-on box.

🏠

Runs on a Pi

Multi-arch image (amd64 + arm64) built by CI — your Pi, your friend's Intel laptop, both work.

📊

Live progress

The status message updates in place with a progress bar, size and percentage as the download runs.

👥

Access control

Lock the bot to specific Telegram user ids. Random people get a single "Not authorised" — no loops.

Install

Prerequisite: Docker with the compose plugin. Pick your path:

curl -fsSL -o run.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arjun0084/TelegramDownloader/main/run.sh && bash run.sh

First run downloads docker-compose.yml + .env.example, creates .env and tells you exactly what to fill in. Run it once more and the container is up. Updates = same command.

docker run -d --name tgdl --restart unless-stopped \
  -v /path/to/your/media:/downloads -v tgdl_data:/data \
  -e TG_API_ID=... -e TG_API_HASH=... -e TG_BOT_TOKEN=... \
  -e TG_OUTPUT_DIR=/downloads \
  arjun0084/telegram-downloader:latest

The no-compose path. Swap the env values for yours and the media path for your folder.

mkdir tgdl && cd tgdl
curl -fsSL -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arjun0084/TelegramDownloader/main/docker-compose.yml
curl -fsSL -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arjun0084/TelegramDownloader/main/.env.example
cp .env.example .env
nano .env
./run.sh

How it works

Three steps between you and a private downloader.

Get free API credentialsGrab api_id + api_hash from my.telegram.org and a bot token from @BotFather — takes two minutes, costs nothing.

Run one commandDocker pulls the image from Docker Hub. You configure your secrets in a single .env file and point it at your downloads folder.

Forward and forgetOpen a chat with your bot, forward any movie or file, and watch it land on your drive with a live progress bar.

Configuration

Everything lives in one .env file (copy from .env.example).

Variable	What it is	Where to get it
`TG_API_ID`	Telegram app id	my.telegram.org → API development tools
`TG_API_HASH`	Telegram app hash	my.telegram.org → API development tools
`TG_BOT_TOKEN`	Bot token	@BotFather → /newbot
`MEDIA_HOST_DIR`	Where downloads land on your machine	Your own path, e.g. `/media/usb` or `~/Videos`
`TG_ALLOWED_USER_ID`	Allow-list of Telegram ids (comma-separated). `0` = anyone in private chat	@userinfobot

Usage

Nothing to learn.

Open a private chat with your bot and send /start — it confirms the save path.
Forward any movie or file — the bot replies with a live progress bar on the same message, then flips to ✅ Done.
Day-to-day ops on the host: ./run.sh (start), ./run.sh update (pull latest image), ./run.sh logs (follow logs), ./run.sh down (stop).
Restarts are handled automatically — restart: unless-stopped brings the container back on reboot, and the session persists in a named volume.

Forward a movie.It saves itself.