Your own user ID, private chats and groups

These IDs cannot be looked up by name. Telegram hands them only to a bot that received a message — so let one receive a message and read the ID from it.

Your user ID, with your own bot

  1. Create a bot (once)

    Send /newbot to @BotFather and keep the token it gives you.

  2. Send your bot a message

    Open the bot in Telegram and press Start.

  3. Call getUpdates

    Run the command shown in the inspector in a terminal, or open the URL yourself.

  4. Read from.id

    That positive number is your user ID. In a private chat, chat.id is the same number.

A private group or channel

  1. Add your bot to the group

    For a channel: add it as an administrator.

  2. Send a message the bot receives

    In groups send /start@yourbot — with privacy mode on, a bot only sees commands, mentions and replies. In a channel, post anything.

  3. Call getUpdates and read chat.id

    A negative number; −100… for supergroups and channels.

  4. Remove the bot again

    The ID stays valid.

Have a link to a message in that chat? Then you already have the ID: decode the message link.

getUpdates inspector

Paste what getUpdates returned (or a single update or message). Every ID in it is listed. Read in your browser — nothing is uploaded.

1 · Fetch your bot's updates in a terminal
TOKEN='paste-your-token-here'
curl -s "https://api.telegram.org/bot$TOKEN/getUpdates"

FAQ

What is my Telegram user ID?

A positive number that Telegram assigned to your account when it was created. It never changes, unlike your @username or phone number. It is not shown in the Telegram apps; a bot you write to receives it as from.id.

Can someone find my user ID from my @username?

Not through the Bot API: a bot only learns the ID of people who wrote to it or whose messages it sees in a group. Programs that log in as a user account (MTProto) can resolve a public username, which is why an ID should not be treated as a secret.

How do I get the chat ID of a private group?

Add your bot to the group, send /start@yourbot there and call getUpdates. message.chat.id is the group's ID — negative, and starting with −100 if the group is a supergroup.

Is my user ID a secret?

No. Knowing an ID does not let anyone message you or log in. A bot can only write to a user who has started it first.

Why can this site not look up a person?

The lookup uses the Bot API's getChat, which answers for public channels and public groups by name. For people and private chats Telegram gives a bot no answer by name, so the site does not pretend to.