Telegram -> OneDrive jrnl bridge

This project polls a private Telegram bot and appends messages to a OneDrive journal file in jrnl-style timestamp format.

• Journal output: OneDrive\\telegram-jrnl.txt (append-only)
• Media output: OneDrive\\jrnl-media\\...
• Attachment reference in journal: Markdown link to the saved media file path
• Timestamp format: [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM] from Telegram message metadata (message.date)

What it does

• Text message only:
  • Appends: [2026-03-02 19:00] your message
• Text + attachment:
  • Saves file under jrnl-media
  • Appends message with markdown link to media
• Attachment/voice note without text:
  • Saves file under jrnl-media
  • Appends: [timestamp] sent file [filename](path)

1) Create your Telegram bot

1. Open Telegram and chat with BotFather.
2. Use /newbot and copy the token.
3. Start a chat with your new bot and send it one message.
4. Optional but recommended: find your chat ID and set TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_CHAT_ID.

2) Configure

Edit .env:

• TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN: bot token from BotFather
• ONEDRIVE_DIR: your OneDrive root folder
• (optional) TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_CHAT_ID: only accept messages from your chat
• (optional) TIMEZONE: force timezone like America/New_York

3) Run manually (test)

Use PowerShell in this folder and run:

• ./start_bot.ps1

Then message your bot from iPhone and verify:

• OneDrive\\telegram-jrnl.txt updated
• OneDrive\\jrnl-media has attachments

4) Start with Windows (hidden background)

In PowerShell (Run as your user):

• ./install_startup.ps1

This creates a scheduled task named TelegramJrnlBot that starts at logon and runs hidden.

Useful commands:

• Start now: Start-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'TelegramJrnlBot'
• Stop now: Stop-ScheduledTask -TaskName 'TelegramJrnlBot'
• Remove startup: ./uninstall_startup.ps1

Notes

• The bot uses long polling (no public webhook endpoint required).

• State is tracked in bot_state.json so old messages are not re-imported after restarts.

• Logs:

  • logs/telegram_jrnl_bot.log
  • logs/startup-wrapper.log

  Running on Linux / DigitalOcean (simple options)

  This repository is cross-platform. On a Linux droplet the easiest ways to have the bot write into OneDrive are:

  A) Mount your OneDrive with rclone and point ONEDRIVE_DIR at the mountpoint (recommended).

  • Install rclone: curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash (or use your package manager).
  • Run rclone config and create a remote called e.g. onedrive following the interactive prompts.
  • Mount the remote (temporary):

  rclone mount onedrive: /mnt/onedrive --daemon

  • Set ONEDRIVE_DIR=/mnt/onedrive in .env and run the bot (see systemd below).

  B) Or keep a local folder and let the bot push files using rclone after every write.

  • Set ONEDRIVE_REMOTE in .env to the rclone remote prefix you created, e.g. onedrive:my-jrnl.
  • The bot will call rclone copyto to upload attachments and the journal file after each change.
  • Optionally set RCLONE_REMOVE_LOCAL=true to delete local media files after a successful upload (saves disk space on the server).

  Example minimal .env (see .env.example in the repo):

  TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN="<your-token>"
  ONEDRIVE_DIR="/home/youruser/sandroidJrnlTelegramBot/onedrive"
  # Optional rclone upload instead of a mount
  # ONEDRIVE_REMOTE="onedrive:telegram-jrnl"
  # RCLONE_REMOVE_LOCAL=false
  # Optional: TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_CHAT_ID=123456789
  # Optional: TIMEZONE=Europe/Berlin
  

  Systemd unit example (copy to /etc/systemd/system/telegram-jrnl.service and edit User and WorkingDirectory):

  [Unit]
  Description=Telegram Jrnl Bot
  After=network-online.target
  
  [Service]
  Type=simple
  User=youruser
  WorkingDirectory=/home/youruser/sandroidJrnlTelegramBot
  EnvironmentFile=/home/youruser/sandroidJrnlTelegramBot/.env
  ExecStart=/usr/bin/env python3 telegram_jrnl_bot.py
  Restart=on-failure
  RestartSec=5
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target
  

  After adding the unit run:

  sudo systemctl daemon-reload
  sudo systemctl enable --now telegram-jrnl.service
  sudo journalctl -u telegram-jrnl -f

  Notes:

  • If you use an rclone mount, ensure the mount unit starts before this service (use After=/Wants= in the unit file).
  • The bot uses only the Python standard library; no extra pip packages are required unless you add them.