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Telegram Bot Privacy: How to achieve that your bot will only receive messages that mention the bot by username

To How to receive messages in group chats using telegram bot api, I find 2 solutions:

  • Make the bot admin of the group
  • Disable privacy

Unfortunately, if I do any of those, the Telegram bot will receive ALL messages sent to the group (according to my tests).

However, according with what I read, it should be possible to send to the bot messages only if I mention the bot eg @my-bot-name-bot

How to restrict the bot to receive messages only if I mention it?

Some screenshots:

screenshots with annotations

Solution

  • Short answer

    Keep privacy enabled, add the bot as member to the group (no admin). Follow the following structure:

    • /heymyfriend@name-the-bot testing message

    Long answer

    Actually the reply was in the other post I mentioned, but I didn't understand it well. So I'm going to explain again with my words trying to help to whoever comes next trying to find a more privacy-happy solution.

    It is possible to restrict the bot to receive messages only if we mention it.

    Firstly, remember:

    • Create your own bot (eg pabbly.com) or use the one provided by the service (eg IFTTT). Depending of the service you choose it's one way or the other. I didn't have any problem doing this step. It was easy following the given steps.
    • Enable privacy in both father (it's enabled by default). Refer the previous post if you don't know how to do it.
    • Add the bot to whatever group you need the bot to work (do NOT give admin rights).

    Then, you just have to m̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ write a message following the following structure:

    • /command-or-any-text@name-the-bot whatever text or link you want to share

    The following worked in my tests:

    • ✅ /heymyfriend@name-the-bot testing message
    • ✅ /https://edinventa.com/@name-the-bot testing with URL (and more slashes)

    The following didn't work in my test (do NOT include a space before the @):

    • ❌ /hey my friend@name-the-bot testing message
    • ❌ /heymyfriend @name-the-bot testing message