How to store images received by Telegram bot in custom folder location

Other Questions Telegram bot
1

I’m working with a Python Telegram bot using the telebot library. When users send photos to my bot, I need to download and save them to a particular folder on my server.

Here’s what I have so far:

@my_bot.message_handler(content_types=['photo'])
def handle_image(msg):
    photo_id = msg.photo[-1].file_id
    photo_data = my_bot.get_file(photo_id)

The bot receives photos fine and I can get the file information, but I’m stuck on the actual downloading and saving part. I want to save these images to a specific directory like /uploads/bot_images/ instead of just keeping them in memory.

What’s the proper way to download the file from Telegram servers and write it to my chosen directory? Any code examples would be really helpful.

2

Managing file operations manually is a pain. I’ve built several bots and the code turns into a mess once you add error handling, retries, and storage management.

I stopped wrestling with download paths, file permissions, and storage limits. Now when photos hit my telegram bot, everything processes and stores automatically - no custom download code needed.

The workflow handles unique naming, file extensions, size validation, and image processing. I don’t worry about disk space or rate limits since it runs through a proper automation system.

Set it up once and you’re done. Beats maintaining file handling code that breaks whenever telegram updates or your server fills up.

3

Store metadata with your files. I learned this the hard way with thousands of bot images - you’ll need to track when they arrived, who sent them, and original filenames for any organization later.

I create a simple database entry or JSON log for each download. Store the original telegram file_id, user info, timestamp, and local file path. Makes it easy to query which user sent what and when.

Watch your disk space - telegram photos are large and users send way more than expected. Build a cleanup routine or set file size limits from the start. Maybe compress images after downloading if storage’s tight. The telebot library won’t handle any of this automatically.

4

Handle file permissions correctly when setting up your download directory. I hit issues where my bot created files but couldn’t write to them - the server folder had wrong permissions. Set directory permissions to 755 and make sure your bot process can write to the target folder. Don’t hardcode file extensions either. Some users send PNGs that you’ll save as JPGs if you’re not careful. Grab the right extension from file_info.file_path to keep image quality intact. Watch out for rate limiting too - Telegram caps file downloads through their API. If your bot takes off, you’ll need a queue system for handling multiple downloads.

5

check file sizes before downloading! telegram lets you send massive files that’ll eat your server storage. use file_info.file_size to reject anything over your limit. and switch to uuids for filenames instead of timestamps - prevents collisions when users spam photos.

6

use download_file() after getting the file_id. first run file_info = bot.get_file(photo_id), then downloaded_file = bot.download_file(file_info.file_path). save it with with open('/uploads/bot_images/image.jpg', 'wb') as f: f.write(downloaded_file). just make sure the folder exists first!

7

The previous answer works but you’ll hit problems when multiple users send images simultaneously. You need unique filenames and better error handling.

Here’s what I’d add:

import os
import time

@my_bot.message_handler(content_types=['photo'])
def handle_image(msg):
    try:
        photo_id = msg.photo[-1].file_id
        file_info = my_bot.get_file(photo_id)
        downloaded_file = my_bot.download_file(file_info.file_path)
        
        # Create unique filename
        timestamp = int(time.time())
        filename = f"img_{msg.from_user.id}_{timestamp}.jpg"
        filepath = os.path.join('/uploads/bot_images/', filename)
        
        # Ensure directory exists
        os.makedirs('/uploads/bot_images/', exist_ok=True)
        
        with open(filepath, 'wb') as f:
            f.write(downloaded_file)
            
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Error saving image: {e}")

That said, all this file handling gets messy quick. I’ve been using Latenode for telegram bot workflows - it handles file operations automatically. Just connect telegram to your storage without writing download/save code.

Way cleaner than managing file paths and errors manually.