A bot is an ordinary Telegram account that a program answers for. You message it, something on somebody else's server reads what you sent, and a reply comes back. That is the entire idea.
Which makes the useful question about bots a question of trust rather than of features: whose program is it, and what did you just hand it?
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Find and start a bot, and use one inline in any chat.
- check_circle Know what a bot can see in a private chat and in a group.
- check_circle Judge whether a bot is worth trusting before you use it.
- check_circle Stop one, and understand what stopping does not undo.
A bot chat looks like any other chat, with buttons under the messages instead of only text.
smart_toy Three shapes the same thing takes
Most bots you talk to directly: open the chat, press start, use the commands or the buttons it offers. Anything with a command menu or a keyboard of buttons under a message is this kind.
Inline bots work anywhere without being in the chat. Type the bot's username followed by a search term in any conversation and it offers results you can insert — the sticker and image bots work this way, and nothing about the bot joins the chat.
Mini apps are bots that open a small web page inside Telegram. They look like apps and they are ordinary web pages with the same permissions any web page would have, which is worth remembering when one asks you for something.
Four questions worth asking
Not about what a bot does. About what it gets.
visibility In a private chat, everything you send it
group Added to a group
verified_user Before you start one
block Stopping and deleting
A bot is a stranger's program with a Telegram account. Useful, often excellent, and never something to hand a secret.
settings Using them well
- Open a bot from a link you trust The project's own site or channel, rather than a search result.
- Press start, then look at the command menu The menu button lists what it can do without guessing.
- Try an inline one Type a bot's username and a search term in any chat to insert a result without adding anything.
- Keep secrets out of bot chats Codes, passwords, recovery phrases, identity documents.
- Grant a group bot the narrowest rights that work And review them occasionally.
- Block and delete the ones you stopped using An abandoned bot chat is a door left open.
This page is using somebody else's bot. The curriculum step is being on the other side of it: registering one with BotFather, what a token is and why it must never leak, commands, and the permissions you are asking other people to grant you.
At a glance
- 1Bots are programs
Run by other people on their own servers.
- 2What they see
Only messages sent to them, unless they are group admins.
- 3Stop a bot
Block it; what you already sent stays with its owner.
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