forwarder-app is a Python client that forwards messages automatically from a chat to another by using your Telegram account.

Every rule allows you to forward from one source to n destinations (one to many)

You can have as many rules as you want or until your machine can take it.

This project depends on TDLib. TDLib is the official cross-platform library for building Telegram clients written in C++. Also, it depends on pywtdlib which is a synchronous python Telegram wrapper for TDLib.

1. Pull the docker repository

   docker pull alvhix/forwarder-app
   

2. Make a separate folder and inside it:

   • Write your API_ID and API_HASH into the .env file. Go to Telegram page to get your API_ID and API_HASH, example:

     API_ID=1234567
     API_HASH=f10123h41l142jl134nngnl143543lep
     

   • Write your forwarder-app.config.yml file: To specify the source and destination of different chats, you may add new rules in the forwarder-app.config.yml file. Example:

     forward:
       - id: 'Rule 1'
         source: -1001234567890
         destination:
           - 1234567890
         options: {}
         send_copy: true
         remove_caption: false
     
       - id: 'Rule 2'
         source: -1000987654321
         destination:
           - 1234567890
           - -1001234567890
         options:
           disable_notification: true
           from_background: true
         send_copy: false
         remove_caption: true

     The structure of this file is very simple. Every rule has:

     • id: Give a unique name to your rule, make sure that is unique in this file
     • source: Source chat id, only one chat id
     • destination: Destination chat ids, can be multiple
     • options: Options for the message
       • disable_notification: Disable the push notification
       • from_background: Sent from the background
     • send_copy: Send copy or not
     • remove_caption: Remove caption

     For more information about the options: Go to TDLib documentation page

3. Run the docker container inside the folder you have created:

   docker run \
   -v "$(pwd)/forwarder-app.config.yml:/forwarder-app/forwarder-app.config.yml" \
   --env-file .env \
   --name forwarder-app \
   -it alvhix/forwarder-app
   

• -v Bind your forwarder-app.config.yml with the one on the docker container
• --env-file Send your environment variables with your API_ID and API_HASH to the docker container
• it Execute the container in interactive mode so you can put your credentials

Optional: You can pass the parameter --restart=always to make sure that the container starts on boot. For more info, go to this page.

This will execute the docker container and it will ask you for your Telegram account phone number and a code that you will receive. To stop the session in your Telegram account, just go to Telegram app > Settings > Privacy and security > Devices > Active sessions (just delete here the pywtdlib app)

4. Next time you want to run the container, just use this command:

   docker start forwarder-app
   

5. (Recommended): If you want to run the app for long periods of time in your server, I recommend you to create a cron job in your Linux machine to avoid an OOM. TDLib caches all data to be that fast, if you have a lot of chats and let the app run for long periods of time it can take all your server memory. To fix this possible problem, follow this steps:

   • Create a cron job

     crontab -e
     

   • Put this at the bottom of the file and save it

     0 0 * * 0 /usr/bin/docker restart forwarder-app
     

   This will make your docker container restart at 00:00 on every Sunday. For more info, you can check this page.

6. To interrupt your docker container, just type

   docker stop forwarder-app
   

Configure the forwarder to fit your needs. The config.py contains the instructions to control the behaviour of the forwarder and the client.

FORWARDER = {
    "api_id": environ["API_ID"], # don't touch this
    "api_hash": environ["API_HASH"], # don't touch this
    "rules_path": path.join(_dirname, "forwarder-app.config.yml"), # you can specify other path to your rules file
    "group_messages": False,  # True to group media messages before forwarding, (it may take $(periodicity_fwd) second/s to forward)
    "periodicity_fwd": 1,  # second/s (not used if $(group_messages) is false)
    "verbosity": 1,
}

The best way to host this application is in a dedicated server as AWS, Google Cloud, Azure...

Warning: The TDLib library stores data in memory throughout the life cycle of the application. It is recommended to restart the application from time to time for prolonged uses.

• To see your logs execute this with your docker container id: docker exec forwarder-app tail log/app.log
• Errors are registered by TDLib in console, to see the printed errors to console: docker logs forwarder-app

If you detect a bug or you have a suggestion, open a ticket with the corresponding template.