To filter Telegram messages by keyword means watching one or more chats and keeping only the posts that contain the words you care about, or dropping the ones that contain words you do not. Telegram’s own search can find old messages, but it will not watch for new ones or act on them. Message filtering is coming to TelegramBuddy but is not built yet — join the waitlist below for early access. When it launches, you will be able to set filter rules in the desktop app that run from your own account.
Below is what the filters are planned to match on, how they will fit with alerts and forwarding, and what already works today.
What the Telegram message filter will do
Filters are the “optional processing” step in the rule shape that TelegramBuddy’s upcoming features share: a source chat, processing, and a destination. A filter decides which posts from the source make it through.
When it launches, you will be able to filter by:
| Filter | Example |
|---|---|
| Keywords and phrases | keep posts mentioning “vacancy” or “remote” |
| Excluded words | drop posts containing “promo” or “giveaway” |
| Author | only posts from the channel admins, or not from a certain member of a group |
| Media type | only videos, only documents, or text posts with no media |
| Links | drop posts with links, or only keep posts that link to a certain site |
Rules will combine, so “posts with a PDF that mention the course name, from the admins” becomes one filter.
Three ways the filter will be used
Keyword alerts
Pick the chats to watch and the words to look for. When a new post matches, you get a message — for instance in your Saved Messages — with a link to the original. Useful for job channels, marketplace groups, an item coming back in stock, or your company’s name coming up in a large community.
Cleaner forwarding
Combined with Telegram auto forward, a filter decides what gets passed on. You will be able to block spam in forwarded posts, skip anything with an unwanted link, or forward only the posts that are about one topic.
Quieter reading
Paired with the planned AI summary, a filter can narrow what the summary is written from, so the digest covers only the parts of a busy group you care about.
How it is planned to work
- Sign in to TelegramBuddy with your own Telegram account, as the app does today: QR code or phone number, plus your own api_id and api_hash from my.telegram.org. This guide shows where to get them.
- Choose the chats to watch. Private groups and channels you are a member of will work as well as public ones.
- Add the conditions: words to include, words to exclude, authors, media types, links.
- Choose what happens on a match: alert you, forward the post, or add it to a digest.
- Turn the rule on, and edit or pause it whenever you like.
Details that matter
- It only sees what you see. Filters run from your own account, not a bot, so they can watch any chat you can already read, and nothing needs to be added to the group.
- Protected chats are respected. If a channel has “Restrict saving content” on, the owner has said the content should not leave the chat. Filters will not forward posts out of those chats. Ask the owner if you need the material.
- Matching details are not final. Plain words and phrases are the starting point. We are not promising a particular syntax, number of rules or speed yet.
- Where rules run is not final. Whether they run only while the app is open, or another way, will be stated plainly before launch.
How it compares to the alternatives
| Telegram search and mute | Filter bots | TelegramBuddy (planned) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watches for new posts | no | yes | yes |
| Works in chats you cannot add a bot to | yes, for search | usually no | yes, if your account can read them |
| Filters by author, media type, links | partly, in search | depends | yes |
| Can alert, forward or feed a digest | no | depends | yes |
Telegram’s search is good for looking back and muting is good for silence, but neither acts on new posts. Filter bots can, but only in groups where you are allowed to add them.
What you can do today
Some filtering already exists in TelegramBuddy, for downloading. The gallery view lets you filter a chat’s media by photos, videos, music, voice or documents, search captions and file names, and set a date range, and bulk download applies the same filters across a chat’s whole history. See the Telegram video downloader or the guide to downloading all videos from a channel.
Join the waitlist below to hear when filtering Telegram messages by keyword is ready.