Telegram Amnesia

TGAmnesia is a simple tool to bulk-remove your own messages from select telegram groups.

It can be used either on it's own, or through telegram bot as a wrapper. It is also dockerized.

Dependencies

Either just have docker, or:

Required -

• Python
• Telethon - to interact with Telegram Client API (Also referred to as "MTProto API")
• python-dotenv - to store authentication data

Optional (if you want to automate it within regular intervals) -

• Cron service (tested on Debian's "cron" and Arch's "cronie")
• python-crontab

How to use

Create your "app"

Here's the official instruction

Here's the short version:

1. Go to my.telegram.org
2. Auth with your phone number
3. Go to "API management tool" and fill out necessary fields
4. Obtain your secrets - copy api_id, api_hash, and store them securely.

(If needed) Create your "bot"

Here's the official instruction ("Getting Ready" section)

Here's the short version:

1. In telegram client, go to @BotFather
2. Enter command /newbot and follow intructions
3. You'll get a BOT_TOKEN that'd look something like this - 1234567890:ABCD1E2EFgHI3jPMC7k6lfsD33ZNuTZhHTrlA. Save it with all other secrets.

Option 1 - Use script from CLI

1. Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/BoopyTheFox/TGAmnesia/
cd TGAmnesia/app

2. Create python virtual environment and install dependencies in it:

mkdir venv
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Go through authentication - put in secrets, obtained earlier, and then 2fa code + your tg password, if set.

(tip: if you don't want your secrets to save in shell history, put a space in beginning of your command!)

python3 TGAmnesia_core.py --auth $api_id $api_hash $your_phone_number
python3 TGAmnesia_core.py --auth-2fa $auth_code $password

Now you can use it!

List your groups:

python3 TGAmnesia_core.py --group-list

Show info about some group(s), matching by name:

python3 TGAmnesia_core.py --group-show $part_of_a_group_name

Purge your messages from a group:

python3 TGAmnesia_core.py --group-purge $part_of_a_group_name

You can also dump your messages from a group if you want to review it:

(note - any non-text message will show as [TAG], depending on it's type)

python3 TGAmnesia_core.py --group-dump $part_of_a_group_name

If you just wanted to remove your messages once, don't forget to deauth and remove your secrets:

python3 TGAmnesia_core.py --deauth
cd ../../
rm -r TGAmnesia

You can also schedule tasks using TGAmnesia_schedule.py:

Schedule periodic purging: (note: you can use m for minutes, h for hours, d for days)

python3 TGAmnesia_schedule.py --schedule-purge $part_of_a_group_name 30m

Show currently scheduled jobs:

python3 TGAmnesia_schedule.py --list-jobs $part_of_a_group_name

Remove one or several scheduled jobs:

python3 TGAmnesia_schedule.py --rm-job $part_of_a_group_name

Option 2 - Use it through Telegram Bot

You can use telegram bot as a wrapper:

1. Initialize your bot

First 3 steps are same as above, in "Option 1 - Use script from CLI".

Then do this:

(note: enter your username without @)

python3 TGAmnesia_bot.py --init $your_user_name $api_id $api_hash $bot_token

2. Use your bot

In your telegram bot: On /start, you'll get authentication instructions. On /help, you can read them again, and see all other commands.

Option 3 - Telegram Bot in Docker container

1. Clone the repo - git clone https://github.com/BoopyTheFox/TGAmnesia/ && cd TGAmnesia
2. Deploy your container - ./init.sh $your_user_name $api_id $api_hash $bot_token
3. Go to the bot, auth in the bot

IMPORTANT NOTE (how to not lose your account)

As of May 2024, telegram support leaves NO FEEDBACK AT ALL (even though they do review and resolve user's tickets), so don't get discouraged if you won't receive any.

As telegram officially states (at least on May 2024):

Due to excessive abuse of the Telegram API, all accounts that sign up or log in using unofficial Telegram API clients are automatically put under observation to avoid violations of the Terms of Service

Also, telegram anti-fraud is heavily automated (as it should be), and unless you do some precautions, it will do the following things:

• Force de-auth your account from all sessions
• Force you to link / re-link an e-mail to it (you can change back to your main one later)
• Will throw PHONE_CODE_EXPIRED and EMAIL_NOT_ALLOWED and laugh at you

What can trigger it

• Flagged IP's (Most VPNs)
• Being in different locations at the same time
• Incomplete login attempts
• Not tapping "Yes, it was me!" in mobile client seconds after you logged in
• Probably something else i don't know

How to avoid it

• Tap that "Yes, it was me!" button in your mobile client after you authenticate. It shows up to a minute late
• If you use VPN, whitelist these
• If you can't whitelist, and your VPN comes out of another country, don't use VPN when logging in

Other notes

• 2FA code in Telegram Bot needs to be entered in reverse - that's because telegram detects if your 2FA code have been shared through your telegram account, blocking login attempt.
• Telegram seems to be indexing messages within irregular intervals, about ~5-10 minutes. So, even if you schedule purge every minute, fresh messages will be purged some time later.
• If your docker container seems to be stuck on installing dependencies - it's a DNS issue. Turn off your VPN tun, or set up docker network through it.