Version: 0.1.4 | License: MIT

A lightweight CLI tool to scrape messages from a public Telegram channel and save them to CSV. Supports both flag-driven and interactive modes with a colored banner.

# From PyPI:
pip install --upgrade telegather

To install a specific version:

pip install telegather==0.1.4

Tip (Windows): Ensure your Python “Scripts” folder is on %PATH% so telegather is recognized.

If you already have your Telegram API credentials:

telegather \
  --api-id 1234567 \
  --api-hash abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789 \
  --channel someChannelUsername \
  --limit 50 \
  --output messages.csv

• --api-id (integer): your Telegram API ID
• --api-hash (string): your Telegram API hash
• --channel (string): channel username (omit t.me/)
• --limit (int): number of messages (0 or omit for ALL)
• --output (string): output CSV filename (default: msgs.csv)

Run without flags:

telegather

1. Clears screen & displays a colored banner.
2. Prompts step-by-step for:
   • API_ID
   • API_HASH
   • Channel username
   • Limit (blank or 0 = ALL)
   • Output CSV path (default shown in brackets)
3. Shows a summary, then scrapes and writes CSV.

id,date,text
12345,2025-06-01T14:23:00,"First message text..."
12346,2025-06-01T14:25:10,"Another message—newlines become spaces."
…

• id: Telegram message ID
• date: ISO 8601 timestamp
• text: Message body (newlines replaced by spaces)

1. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/eendale/telegather.git
   cd telegather

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate    # macOS/Linux
   .venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1   # Windows PowerShell

3. Install in editable mode:

   pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
   pip install -e .

4. Verify the version and run the CLI:

   pip show telegather   # should show Version: 0.1.4
   telegather --help
   telegather