Connect Telegram
Telegram has no sign in screen for publishing apps, so posts go out as a bot that you create. You make the bot, give it permission to post, and paste its token into NioConnect.
The NioConnect team3 min readOn this page
- Time
- About 3 minutes
- You need
- The Telegram app and a channel or group you manage
- Where
- Telegram, then Channels
Before you start
You need the Telegram app and a channel or group where you can add administrators. The bot belongs to you, so its token and its rate limits are yours, not shared with other NioConnect users.
Treat the token like a password. Anyone who holds it can post as your bot, so do not paste it into chats or documents.
Create the bot and connect it
- In Telegram, search for @BotFather (the one with the blue tick) and start a chat.
- Send
/newbot. Give the bot a display name, then a username that is unique and ends inbot. - Copy the token BotFather sends, the line that follows "Use this token to access the HTTP API".
- Open your channel, go to Administrators, choose Add Admin, search for the bot and grant at least Post Messages. For a group, add the bot as a member first, then promote it.
- In NioConnect open Channels, choose Connect, then Telegram, and paste the whole token into the Bot token field.
- Pick the chat from the list NioConnect shows. That pairing is your channel.
Making the bot an administrator is the step most people miss. Without it the chat list stays empty or publishing fails with a rights error.
What you should see
The token field is masked while you type, and once you save, the value is sealed and never shown again, to you, to teammates or to support. The new channel appears in Channels as connected.
One bot can serve many chats. To post to a second group with the same bot, connect Telegram again and pick the other chat. Each chat is its own channel, which is intended.
Telegram allows up to 4,096 characters in a text post and 1,024 in a caption. The Telegram page lists the rest of the rules.
If something goes wrong
Most problems come from the bot missing a permission or a token that changed.
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The chat list is empty | The bot is not an administrator anywhere yet | Add it as an administrator, then try again |
| "Unauthorized" when you paste | The token is mistyped or was revoked | Get it again from BotFather: /mybots, pick the bot, API Token |
| Publishing fails with "not enough rights" | The bot is an admin without the one permission that matters | Grant Post Messages on that channel |
| The channel needs reconnection | The token was revoked, or the bot lost its admin rights | Restore the rights, or paste the new token and reconnect |
Reconnecting uses the same panel as connecting, so this guide applies again. The help article A channel needs reconnecting covers the general case.
Good to know
Bot tokens do not expire, so there is nothing to refresh. A Telegram channel keeps working until something changes on Telegram’s side.
To cut access at any time, send /revoke to BotFather. It kills the token everywhere it is used, and the channel will ask to be reconnected.
A post with a poll sends the poll only, using your text as the question, and the question is limited to 300 characters. Poll duration on Telegram tops out at 10 minutes.
Next steps
Write your first post in the composer and check it against the Telegram limits; the character counter tool gives a quick answer. If you want to see how a sealed token is kept, read how credentials are sealed.
Check your result
- Confirm the bot is an administrator of the chat with Post Messages.
- Check that the channel shows as connected in Channels.
- Schedule a short test post and watch the calendar for its status.
- Keep the token somewhere safe, or plan to generate a new one if you lose it.
Written by The NioConnect team.
Posts that say why they failed, on one calendar.
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