Find out my own user ID for sending a message with Telegram API

Question

For Telegram, how can I find out my own user id (chat_id) for use with the Telegram API?

I want to send myself a message via the Telegram API, like this:

https://api.telegram.org/bot<BOTID>/sendMessage

Chloroform

Answer 1

Send a message to your bot then retrieve the update with:

https://api.telegram.org/bot<BOTID>/getUpdates

In the json string returned you will find you chat_id/user_id.
In single chat with the bot chat_id is equal to user_id.
Now you can send your message with:

https://api.telegram.org/bot<BOTID>/sendMessage?chat_id="yourchatid"&text="Hello!"

Wallace

Answer 2

You could use Json Dump Bot.

The relevant section of the output will be similar to:

{
  "message": {
    "from": {
      "id": WHAT_YOU_ARE_LOOKING_FOR,
      "is_bot": false,
      "first_name": "Paolo",
      "language_code": "it"
    }
  }
}

or: https://t.me/userinfobot - just forward message to get his id

Chilly

Answer 3

The easier way is to go to the web version of Telegram and go to the chat whose ID you want to know. It'll be in the URL which is in form:

https://web.telegram.org/#/im?p=u<ID>_<something>

For groups this works too, but their IDs are negative, so if URL looks like

https://web.telegram.org/#/im?p=g1234567

then group chat ID is -1234567.

Urey

Do you have any idea what is <something>? – Hippocrates

Answer 4

On Android (or rather Lineage) I was able to look up the user_id under "Settings > Accounts > Telegram"

Holter

Answer 5

The placeholder is actually a token, not a key. Surely you already know what that is and can use it?

https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#authorizing-your-bot

Irrupt

Sorry, some guy edited my question. I want to know not BOTID, but user_id (chat_id) – Chloroform