I’m working on a telegram bot project using the Python-Telegram-Bot library. I want to make my bot work only in specific groups by checking the group details.
I need to figure out how to retrieve both the group display name and the username handle so I can restrict my bot’s functionality. For example, if my group is called ‘MyGroup’ with handle @mygroup123, I want to do something like this:
if group_title == 'MyGroup':
# execute bot commands
pass
Or check by username:
if group_handle == 'mygroup123':
# run specific functions
pass
What’s the proper way to access these group properties in a telegram bot? I’ve been looking through the documentation but can’t find the right method to get this information from the chat object.
Pro tip: cache your group data after the first API call instead of hitting it every message. I store chat.id, title, and username in a dict and refresh periodically. Saves a ton of requests and makes your bot way smoother, especially in busy groups.
The chat object has everything you need to identify groups. In your handlers, check update.effective_chat.type to confirm it’s a group (‘group’ or ‘supergroup’), then grab update.effective_chat.id for a unique ID that stays the same even when admins change the group name. Way more reliable than checking titles since those can change anytime. I just store group IDs in a whitelist instead of doing string comparisons - grab the ID once from your target groups and hardcode them in your bot config.
I’ve built production bots and honestly, you need both approaches depending on what you’re doing. update.effective_chat.title and update.effective_chat.username work fine for basic stuff, but here’s the catch - not all groups have usernames set. Mine would just return None and my bot would crash. Learned that one the hard way.
What I do now is make a decorator that checks multiple things. Check the chat ID first (it’s the most reliable), then username if it exists, then fall back to title. Covers you when groups don’t have usernames or when admins rename stuff but you still want everything working. Just slap the decorator on your handler functions and you’re set.
hey! you can grab the group name with update.effective_chat.title and the username with update.effective_chat.username (minus the @). it works perfectly in message handlers.
Checking groups in handlers gets messy fast when you’re dealing with multiple groups. I ran into this exact issue managing 20+ groups across different projects.
Better approach? Automate the whole validation process. Build a workflow that monitors bot interactions and handles group checking outside your main code.
Set it up to pull group data via Telegram API, maintain your allowed groups list, and update permissions when groups change. No more hardcoded IDs or custom decorators.
It handles the annoying stuff - missing usernames, renamed groups, whatever. Your bot gets clean data so you can focus on actual features instead of access control.
Perfect for production bots that need to scale without constant babysitting. Check it out: https://latenode.com