Sign in with TelegramTelegram Chat ID Finder
Which chat_id should your bot send to?
Your token stays on this device.
The request goes from your browser directly to api.telegram.org. It is not proxied through MemberPilot, not stored, and not sent to analytics.
- 1Add your bot to the group or channel.
- 2Send any message there, or post to the channel.
- 3Press Find chats. The chat appears with its ID.
Every chat your bot has heard from recently will appear here, with the chat_id ready to copy.
Wiring a bot into a paid Telegram community?
MemberPilot already handles the part after the chat ID: checkout, single-use invites, renewals, and removing members when they stop paying.
Why a bot needs the ID at all
Every Bot API method that touches a chat takes a chat_id. Usernames work in a few places, but only for public chats, and they change whenever their owner decides to change them. The numeric ID is permanent for the life of the chat, which is what you want in a database.
The ID also encodes the chat type. A positive number is a private chat with a user, a plain negative number is a basic group, and a number beginning -100 is a supergroup or a channel. If you have ever seen “chat not found” for a channel that plainly exists, a missing -100 is the usual reason.
The two ways to get one
From updates. Add the bot, send a message, and read getUpdates. This works for every chat type including private groups, and it is the only route that works for chats with no username at all.
From a username. getChat resolves a public channel or supergroup handle. It still needs a bot token — the Bot API has no anonymous endpoints — and it will not resolve private chats or users who have never messaged your bot.
Updates are delivered once
getUpdates is a queue, not a log. This tool reads without advancing the offset, so it will not swallow updates your bot still needs — but a bot that is already polling will have taken them first.What we do with your token
Nothing. The request is made by your browser directly to api.telegram.org. It does not pass through a MemberPilot server, so there is no request log on our side that could contain it, and it is never included in an analytics event or written to storage in this browser.
If you want to confirm the token itself before debugging anything else, the bot token checker calls getMe the same way. And when Telegram returns something cryptic, the error decoder covers the common responses.
Common questions
How do I find a Telegram group chat ID?
Add your bot to the group, send a message there, then call getUpdates with the bot's token. The chat object in the update carries the ID. The tool above does exactly that from your browser and lists every chat it finds, so you do not have to read raw JSON.
Why does a channel ID start with -100?
Supergroups and channels use IDs prefixed with -100 in the Bot API. Basic groups use a plain negative number, and private chats a positive one. Pass the ID exactly as Telegram returned it — trimming the prefix produces 'chat not found'.
Why does the tool find no chats?
Telegram keeps undelivered updates for about 24 hours, and each update is delivered once. If your bot is running and polling, it has already consumed them. Stop the bot, send a fresh message in the chat, then look again. If a webhook is set, Telegram refuses getUpdates outright and returns 409.
Can I get a chat ID without a bot?
Not through the Bot API. Every method needs a bot token, and a bot only sees chats it belongs to. Resolving an arbitrary public username to an ID without a bot needs Telegram's MTProto API and an authenticated account, which is a different thing entirely.
Does my group's chat ID ever change?
Yes, once: when a basic group is upgraded to a supergroup. Telegram returns the replacement in parameters.migrate_to_chat_id and in the migrate_to_chat_id field of an update. Store the new one, because the old one stops resolving.
Sources
Everything this tool asserts about Telegram comes from Telegram’s own documentation.