Working with messages

Note

These examples assume you have read Accessing the Full API.

Forwarding messages

Note

Use the telethon.telegram_client.TelegramClient.forward_messages friendly method instead unless you have a better reason not to!

This method automatically accepts either a single message or many of them.

# If you only have the message IDs
client.forward_messages(
    entity,  # to which entity you are forwarding the messages
    message_ids,  # the IDs of the messages (or message) to forward
    from_entity  # who sent the messages?
)

# If you have ``Message`` objects
client.forward_messages(
    entity,  # to which entity you are forwarding the messages
    messages  # the messages (or message) to forward
)

# You can also do it manually if you prefer
from telethon.tl.functions.messages import ForwardMessagesRequest

messages = foo()  # retrieve a few messages (or even one, in a list)
from_entity = bar()
to_entity = baz()

client(ForwardMessagesRequest(
    from_peer=from_entity,  # who sent these messages?
    id=[msg.id for msg in messages],  # which are the messages?
    to_peer=to_entity  # who are we forwarding them to?
))

The named arguments are there for clarity, although they’re not needed because they appear in order. You can obviously just wrap a single message on the list too, if that’s all you have.

Searching Messages

Note

Use the telethon.telegram_client.TelegramClient.iter_messages friendly method instead unless you have a better reason not to!

This method has search and filter parameters that will suit your needs.

Messages are searched through the obvious SearchRequest, but you may run into issues. A valid example would be:

from telethon.tl.functions.messages import SearchRequest
from telethon.tl.types import InputMessagesFilterEmpty

filter = InputMessagesFilterEmpty()
result = client(SearchRequest(
    peer=peer,      # On which chat/conversation
    q='query',      # What to search for
    filter=filter,  # Filter to use (maybe filter for media)
    min_date=None,  # Minimum date
    max_date=None,  # Maximum date
    offset_id=0,    # ID of the message to use as offset
    add_offset=0,   # Additional offset
    limit=10,       # How many results
    max_id=0,       # Maximum message ID
    min_id=0,       # Minimum message ID
    from_id=None,   # Who must have sent the message (peer)
    hash=0          # Special number to return nothing on no-change
))

It’s important to note that the optional parameter from_id could have been omitted (defaulting to None). Changing it to InputUserEmpty, as one could think to specify “no user”, won’t work because this parameter is a flag, and it being unspecified has a different meaning.

If one were to set from_id=InputUserEmpty(), it would filter messages from “empty” senders, which would likely match no users.

If you get a ChatAdminRequiredError on a channel, it’s probably because you tried setting the from_id filter, and as the error says, you can’t do that. Leave it set to None and it should work.

As with every method, make sure you use the right ID/hash combination for your InputUser or InputChat, or you’ll likely run into errors like UserIdInvalidError.

Sending stickers

Stickers are nothing else than files, and when you successfully retrieve the stickers for a certain sticker set, all you will have are handles to these files. Remember, the files Telegram holds on their servers can be referenced through this pair of ID/hash (unique per user), and you need to use this handle when sending a “document” message. This working example will send yourself the very first sticker you have:

# Get all the sticker sets this user has
sticker_sets = client(GetAllStickersRequest(0))

# Choose a sticker set
sticker_set = sticker_sets.sets[0]

# Get the stickers for this sticker set
stickers = client(GetStickerSetRequest(
    stickerset=InputStickerSetID(
        id=sticker_set.id, access_hash=sticker_set.access_hash
    )
))

# Stickers are nothing more than files, so send that
client(SendMediaRequest(
    peer=client.get_me(),
    media=InputMediaDocument(
        id=InputDocument(
            id=stickers.documents[0].id,
            access_hash=stickers.documents[0].access_hash
        )
    )
))