Telegram Channel Finder: Keyword to Public Channels

Give it a keyword or phrase and get back matching public Telegram channels: handle, title and canonical t.me link. No login, no bot token, no API key.

Why this doesn't depend on a third-party Telegram directory

The obvious approach is scraping one of the existing Telegram directory sites (TGStat, TGKit and similar) that already index channels by category and keyword. That was deliberately not the approach here: it makes this actor's uptime and accuracy dependent on a service we don't control staying online, keeping its layout stable, and continuing to index broadly. Telegram itself exposes no public keyword search without a bot token, but Google indexes public channel previews at t.me/<channel>, so a site-restricted search finds the same channels without that dependency, using the same search transport already proven on this actor's LinkedIn and company-lookup siblings.

Input

• query (required): a keyword or phrase, e.g. "artificial intelligence" or a brand name.
• maxResults: caps how many channels come back. Default 20, maximum 100.
• monitorMode: turns this into a standing watch (see below).

Example output

{
  "handle": "durov",
  "url": "https://t.me/durov",
  "title": "Durov's Channel",
  "checked_at": "2026-08-30T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Invite links (t.me/joinchat/..., t.me/+...) are excluded on purpose: they point at private chats, not public channels, and don't resolve to a checkable public handle the way a channel does.

Turning a keyword into a standing watch

A brand or research team tracking a topic on Telegram doesn't want the same channel list re-delivered and re-billed every time it checks in. Set Monitor mode to true, save the run as an Apify Task, then add that task to a Schedule with the same query each time. Every run after the first returns only channels not delivered in a previous run, so a daily or weekly watch bills only for what's genuinely new.

Who this is for

Brand and market research teams tracking mentions or communities on Telegram around a topic, product or competitor. OSINT and research workflows that need a structured list of relevant public channels rather than Telegram's own in-app search. Anyone building a channel directory or monitoring dashboard that needs Telegram coverage alongside other platforms.

Frequently asked questions

Why isn't a private group or invite-only channel returned? This only finds public channels Google has indexed at a t.me/<handle> URL. Private groups and invite links are excluded, since they don't resolve to a public handle to report.

Does this need a Telegram account or bot token? No. It performs a public web search and reads the results; it never connects to Telegram's own API.

Why did a search return fewer channels than maxResults? A narrow or unusual keyword may simply not have that many indexed public channels. The run log states how many were found.

Can I search in a language other than English? Yes, results depend on what Google has indexed for that term regardless of language.

Pricing

Pay per channel delivered. A search that returns nothing is never charged.