Comments 1
Thank you for the post. As a big fan of Telegram I'd like to post here a call to action to improve the favourite messenger:
I'm seeking anyone who is skilled enough to develop a simple Python script using TDLib, Telegram API, and JSON manipulation to make it possible to perform simple tasks listed below:
Import Telegram chat JSON backup back to Telegram similar to what these scripts are doing https://github.com/alexlyzhov/telegram-import
https://github.com/Suberbia/UltimateChatRestorer
https://github.com/mygrexit/UltimateChatRestorerForGroupchats
but for any chat (not only to "saved messages") including group chats (not only 1 to 1 chats) and improve the code to make it work faster, more reliable, write log file, allow continuing from the stop point in case of errors and keep all the original chat data including formatting and everything that telegram can handle.
Some kinda combine all the script in one universal, flexible, high quality tool.
The most important aspect of the whole task is that the imported messages have to keep not only the formatting, but its original date and time when they were actually sent. Like it is done in the original telegram tool for importing history from some other apps - https://telegram.org/blog/move-historyMake it very simple to use. Perfect solution will be: Download, put the script next to JSON backup and run it in the interactive mode or with some specific options. Let the script ask for all the credentials and briefly explain where to get them. If possible, keep all the job on one device with no need of transferring the WA format zip file to the phone for importing. If not possible, make it an android app which will get the JSON, process it and feed the result to the Telegram app for import.
This is the basic I'm going to pay for. I'm intended to pay just for initial ignition of the interest to the project. Rest assured that anyway, this software will become very popular among telegram users once it is published under the free license on GitHub and will attract lots of attention and respect to the author. All the rights for your code will belong to you. I'm not pretending for anything.
Extra (Optional - reward to be discussed or just for PoC)
Develop the app to make it even more attractive and popular by:
Add WhatsApp TXT.zip backup support to improve basic Telegram functionality of importing WA chats and overcome WA exporting limits by doing a series of imports part by part in chunks. This will allow importing very old and long historical chats with lots of media as they were always on telegram and finally get rid of WhatsApp and free up space on the smartphone by uploading chats to the cloud. The same thing may apply to other Apps mentioned in the original tool announcement or even more, like Facebook Messenger (see links below, some research may be needed)
Add cross-platform accessibility: publish portable binaries, especially for Windows users or APK for Android or even make it a container and publish it on dockerhub for everyone who wants to use it privately and secure.
Make it a Telegram bot, allowing the user just send it a backup file and add it to a group chat which the backup have to be restored to. Or add it to a couple of different chats to merge their history in one of them. Or even transfer a group chat history from one telegram account to another by just changing the user ID in the JSON right before uploading it back. If possible, this functionality can be added to the basic app even without making it a bot. The bot may be published as a docker container for private and secure personal use.
Add support for importing from Google Messages (Android app for SMS/MMS and RCS) and Apple iMessage. For Android consider https://github.com/tmo1/sms-ie and the most popular SynTech SMS Backup & Restore app https://www.synctech.com.au/sms-backup-restore/, and for Apple this may work good:
https://github.com/ReagentX/imessage-exporter/
https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/imessage-exporter
https://github.com/hunterunger/imessage_exporter_app
The idea is to upload all the chats from these basic system apps to Telegram chats with the same person based on the phone number.
Useful links:
https://faq.whatsapp.com/1180414079177245
https://github.com/ChesterXXX/GreenToBlue
https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/13jgd5n/i_made_a_script_to_import_a_telegram_chat_export/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/mx8upw/i_can_export_telegram_chats_but_can_i_import/
https://github.com/vkedwardli/TelegramChatHistoryImporter
https://github.com/TelegramTools/TLImporter
https://lifehacker.com/you-can-export-your-entire-imessage-history-1850000632
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/tool-whatsapp-xtract-backup-messages-extractor-database-analyzer-chat-backup.1583021/
https://medium.com/@3raxtonn/how-to-import-whatsapp-chats-to-signal-or-telegram-548e7af3aab7
https://julieducasse.github.io/2020/01/04/Telegram.html
https://mobiletrans.wondershare.com/whatsapp-transfer-backup-and-restore.html
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imkapps.chatmove
The mystery of Telegram