Create a Telegram bot and find your chat ID

1. Create the bot

1. In Telegram, open a chat with @BotFather.
2. Send /newbot, then choose a name and a username ending in "bot".
3. BotFather replies with an access token. Keep it secret.
4. In n8n, create a Telegram credential and paste the token.

2. Find your chat ID

1. Send any message to your new bot.
2. Open this address in your browser, with your token in place of YOUR_TOKEN:
3. Find "chat":{"id": … } in the response — that number is your chat ID.

https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_TOKEN/getUpdates

Groups and channels

• Group: add the bot to the group, send a message, and check getUpdates again. Group IDs are negative numbers.
• Channel: add the bot as an admin and use @yourchannelname as the chat ID.

Good to know

• Only one app can receive updates for a bot at a time — use a separate bot for each Telegram Trigger flow.
• If your token leaks, send /revoke to @BotFather to get a new one.