How to export Telegram chat history
Last updated: 11 July 2026 · By the TG Downloader team. We've run Telegram's export tool against everything from two-person chats to hundred-thousand-message groups — and built our own JSON export because of what the official one can't do.
Telegram has a real, official export tool — one of the better ones among messaging apps. It also has sharp limitations that most articles skip. Here's how to use it, when it fails you, and what to use instead.
The official way: Telegram Desktop's export tool
The export feature lives only in the desktop app — you won't find it on your phone or in Telegram Web. Two flavors:
- Single chat: open the chat → three-dot menu → Export chat history. Pick which media types to include, set a per-file size cap, choose HTML (human-readable pages) or JSON (machine-readable), and let it run.
- Everything at once: Settings → Advanced → Export Telegram data — your whole account: chats, contacts, sessions, media. This is the “full backup” option.
The output lands in a Telegram Desktop folder inside Downloads. HTML exports open in any browser and look like a frozen copy of the chat; JSON exports are what you want if you plan to search, analyze, or migrate the data programmatically.
What the official tool won't do (learned the slow way)
- No selectivity within a chat. It's all-or-nothing from a date range — you can't say “just the videos from these three threads.”
- It can take hours on media-heavy chats, because it re-downloads every included file at export speed. A group with years of videos is an overnight job.
- Some channels are excluded. Channels with protected content disable export entirely — the menu item simply doesn't appear. That's by design, and no legitimate tool overrides it.
- Desktop app required. If you live in Telegram Web (or a work machine where you can't install apps), the official tool is out of reach.
Alternative 1: media-only archiving from Telegram Web
Most people asking “how do I export this chat” actually want the media — the photos, videos and audio — not a transcript. That's a different job, and a faster one: our TG Downloader extension detects media as you scroll a chat in Telegram Web, then batch-downloads your selection (or ZIPs it into one archive) at original quality. No desktop app, no all-or-nothing export, works on any chat you're a member of. Full walkthrough: downloading all media from a channel.
Alternative 2: JSON export of a chat's media index
For archivists: alongside the files themselves, our extension's Export Chat (JSON) feature writes a machine-readable index of the media it detected in a chat — filenames, types, sizes. We built it because pairing a folder of files with a manifest is the difference between “a pile of MP4s” and an archive you can actually search two years later. It complements (not replaces) Telegram's own JSON export, which covers message text.
Which approach fits which job?
- Legal/complete record of a conversation → official export, HTML + media.
- Full account backup before switching phones → official “Export Telegram data.”
- The photos and videos out of a group, selectively → extension batch download.
- Programmatic analysis of messages → official JSON export.
- Searchable media archive with a manifest → extension batch + JSON index.
Common questions
Does exporting notify the other person or the group? No. Exports and downloads are local operations; nobody is notified.
Why is “Export chat history” missing on some chats? The channel has protected content enabled, or you're looking at the mobile app or Web (the option only exists in Telegram Desktop).
Can I export someone else's channel I'm subscribed to? If export is enabled there, yes — but the personal-use rules apply to exports exactly as they do to downloads: archive for yourself, don't republish.