tgfs

Use telegram as file storage, with a command line tool and WebDAV server. Refer to the wiki page for more detail.

Tested on Windows, Ubuntu, MacOS

Installation

Through NPM

$ npm install tgfs

Through Git

$ yarn install && yarn build
$ alias tgfs="yarn start:prod"

Use it as a WebDAV server

$ tgfs -w

or

$ tgfs --webdav

Tested WebDAV Clients:

• Cyberduck
• Mountain Duck
• File Stash
• WinSCP
• WebDAV Sync
• Joplin

cmd usage

• ls

  $ tgfs cmd ls /
  

• mkdir

  $ tgfs cmd mkdir /documents
  

  $ tgfs cmd mkdir -p /documents/pictures
  

• cp

  $ tgfs cmd cp ~/some-file /
  

• rm

  $ tgfs cmd rm /some-file
  

  $ tgfs cmd rm -r /some-folder
  

Step by Step Guide to Set up config

For feature development purpose, any configuration is unstable at the current stage. You may need to reconfigure following any update.

Automatically:

A config file will be auto-generated when you run the program for the first time. Just follow the instructions to create a Telegram app and a private channel to store the files.

Manually:

Preparation

1. Duplicate the example-config.yaml file and name it config.yaml

Set up account details (why do I need this?)

1. Go to Here, login with your phone number and create a Telegram app.
2. Copy the api_id and api_hash from the Telegram app page (step 2) to the config file (telegram -> account -> api_id / api_hash)

Set up the channel to store files

1. Create a new Telegram private channel (New Channel in the menu on the left)
2. There should be a message like "Channel created". Right click the message and copy the post link.
3. The format of the link should be like https://t.me/c/1234567/1, where 1234567 is the channel id. Copy the channel id to the config file (telegram -> private_file_channel)

Set up a Telegram bot (why do I need this?)

1. Go to BotFather, send /newbot, and follow the steps to create a bot.
2. Paste the bot token given by BotFater to the config file (telegram -> bot -> token)
3. Go to your file channel (created in the previous step), add your bot to subscriber, and promote it to admin, with permission to send/edit/delete messages.

Config fields explanation

• telegram

  • account/bot:
    • session_file: The file path to store the session data. If you want to use multiple accounts, you can set different session files for each account.
  • login_timeout: Time to wait before login attempt aborts (in milliseconds).

• tgfs

  • users: the users authenticated by tgfs, used by both webdav authentication and monitor
  • download
    • chunk_size_kb: The chunk size in KB when downloading files. Bigger chunk size means less requests.

• webdav

  • host: The host of the WebDAV server listening on.
  • port: The port of the WebDAV server listening on.
  • path: The root path for the WebDAV server. For example, setting this value to /webdav makes the WebDAV link http://[host]:[port]/webdav.

FAQ

Q: Why do I need a bot when my account is also able to send messages?

Frequently sending messages may get your account banned, so using a bot is the best way to manage the risk. You can create another bot when it is banned.

Q: Why do I need an account API then?

The functionality of bot API is limited. For example, a bot can neither read history messages, nor send files exceeding 50MB. The account API is used when a bot cannot do the job.