How to upload images via PHP to Telegram bot API?

Other Questions Telegram bot
1

I’m trying to send pictures through my Telegram bot using PHP and cURL but running into issues. The documentation mentions that the photo parameter can be either a file_id string or an InputFile object uploaded via multipart/form-data.

Here’s my current approach:

$api_endpoint = "https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/";
$request_url = $api_endpoint . "sendPhoto?chat_id=" . $user_id;
$curl_handle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
    "Content-Type:multipart/form-data"
));
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_URL, $request_url);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, array(
    "photo" => "@/local/path/picture.jpg",
));
curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_INFILESIZE, filesize("/home/user/image.jpg"));
$response = curl_exec($curl_handle);

When I run this code, Telegram responds with an error about wrong file_id characters or length. I also attempted using file_get_contents instead of the @ symbol, but that gives me empty responses.

What’s the correct method to upload image files to Telegram using PHP and cURL?

2

you’re overcomplicating this. just use file_get_contents to read the image into a variable then pass it as binary data. ‘photo’ => curl_file_create(‘/path/to/image.jpg’) works better than the old @ syntax. also remove that CURLOPT_INFILESIZE line - it’s not needed and might be messing with telegram’s parser.

3

The @ symbol approach is deprecated in newer PHP versions. Use CURLFile instead. Replace your photo parameter with new CURLFile('/local/path/picture.jpg', 'image/jpeg', 'photo.jpg'). Also drop the Content-Type header - cURL handles multipart headers automatically when you pass an array to POSTFIELDS. Make sure your file path is absolute and the web server can access it. I had the same issues until I switched to CURLFile - it handles file uploads properly and Telegram accepts them without complaints. Also check your file permissions are set correctly, that tripped me up too.

4

Had the same issue with Telegram photo uploads. You’re mixing GET and POST - putting chat_id in the URL but using POSTFIELDS won’t work. Here’s what fixed it for me: drop chat_id from the URL and add it to your POSTFIELDS array with the photo parameter. Set curl_setopt($curl_handle, CURLOPT_POST, true) to force POST method. Also, your file paths don’t match - you’ve got /local/path/picture.jpg in POSTFIELDS but /home/user/image.jpg for filesize. Pick one and make sure it’s the actual file location. This approach has been rock solid for me since I stopped mixing methods.