I’m working with a Telegram bot in group chats and running into privacy issues. When I set up my bot to work in groups, I found two main approaches:
- Setting the bot as group administrator
- Turning off privacy mode
The problem is that both methods cause my bot to get every single message posted in the group chat. This creates too much noise and isn’t what I want.
From what I understand about Telegram bots, there should be a way to configure them so they only receive messages when someone specifically mentions the bot using @botusername format.
What’s the correct way to set up a bot so it only gets messages when directly mentioned?
I’ve been testing different configurations but haven’t found the right balance between getting the bot to work in groups while keeping privacy enabled. Any guidance on the proper setup would be really helpful.
The configuration you’re looking for is actually the default behavior when privacy mode is enabled. You don’t need admin privileges for this to work - that’s a common misconception. Keep privacy mode ON (not off) and your bot will only receive messages that directly mention it or are replies to the bot’s messages. I’ve been running several bots this way for months without issues. The key is making sure you haven’t accidentally disabled privacy mode through BotFather. Go to your bot settings via @BotFather, select your bot, go to Bot Settings > Group Privacy, and ensure it shows ‘Enable’ (meaning privacy mode is active). This setup works perfectly in group chats without requiring any special permissions.
Privacy mode is definitely what you want here, but there’s a common configuration mistake that might be causing your issue. When you add the bot to a group, make sure you’re not granting it admin rights if you want privacy mode to work properly. Having admin privileges can override privacy settings and cause the bot to receive all messages regardless of the privacy mode setting. Just add your bot as a regular member, keep privacy mode enabled through BotFather, and it should only receive messages when mentioned with @ or when users reply directly to the bot’s messages. I had the exact same problem when I first started - was making my bot an admin thinking it needed special permissions, but that actually broke the privacy filtering.
u dont have to turn off privacy mode. if it’s enabled, the bot will only see messages when ppl mention it using @ or reply to its msgs. that’s what privacy mode does, it’s kinda the point.