Telegram has no built-in way to say "everything posted here should also appear there". Forwarding is manual, one message at a time. This guide covers the four ways to automate it and which one fits your situation.
These sound the same and behave very differently.
Forwarding keeps the "Forwarded from X" label. Attribution is automatic, your readers can tap through to the source, and Telegram treats it as a forward. It's also blocked if the source has restricted saving, and it can't be modified on the way through.
Copying republishes the content as a brand-new post in your channel. No forwarded label, so it reads as your own. It works from restricted sources, and because you're composing a new message you can translate it, filter it, add a header, or strip links.
Almost everyone building a mirror wants copying. People sharing curated finds usually want forwarding. Decide before you set anything up, because it changes which tools can help.
Fine at low volume, and free. Select a message, forward, pick the destination. If you're mirroring five posts a week, stop reading; this is the right answer.
It stops working at about twenty posts a day, or the moment you want it to happen while you're asleep.
Add a bot to the source and the destination and have it repost what it sees.
The hard limit: a bot can only read chats it's been added to as a member (and for channels, usually as an admin). For your own channels, great. For someone else's channel, you can't add a bot, so this approach is simply unavailable — no tool and no price tier changes that.
Use it when: you own both ends.
Tools like tgcf log in as your Telegram account (via Telegram's MTProto API rather than the Bot API), so they can read anything you can read — including channels you're merely subscribed to, and channels with saving restricted.
What it takes: a machine that's always on, a Telegram API id and hash from my.telegram.org, Python, and ongoing maintenance. Your session file stays on your own hardware, which is the strongest privacy position available.
Use it when: you're technical and want control.
Same mechanism as option 3 — your account reads, something posts — but someone else runs the infrastructure. You connect your account once and configure the rest in an app.
What it takes: trusting a third party with a Telegram session. Ask two questions before you do:
Options include Junction bot, TeleFeed, and EzForwardBot — ours. We compare them honestly in Junction bot alternatives.
Use it when: you'd rather not run a server.
Whichever tool you use, these are the settings that decide whether the result is any good.
Skip repeats (de-duplication). If you pull from several sources, the same story arrives several times. De-duplication compares content and drops what you've already published. Turn it on for aggregation; turn it off if you deliberately want every source's take.
Keyword include/exclude. Include is a whitelist — only posts matching these words get through. Exclude is a blacklist, and it's the one that does the real work: promo, sale, invite, subscribe, ad will clean up most feeds dramatically.
Strip source links. Copied posts often contain "join @theirchannel". If you don't remove those, your mirror advertises the source instead of you.
Header and footer. A one-line header is where attribution goes on a copied post, since there's no forwarded label. Even when you're not obliged to credit, doing it makes owners far more relaxed about being mirrored.
Delay. A per-connection delay is how you keep a paid channel ahead of a free one, and it also gives you a window to catch a bad post before it propagates.
Media vs text. Some feeds are only worth carrying as media (charts, screenshots); some are ruined by it. Filter accordingly.
Flood limits. Telegram rate-limits accounts that post a lot. Mirroring a very busy channel into several destinations at once will hit that. Good tooling backs off automatically; if yours doesn't, spread the load or slow it down.
Edits and deletions. If the source edits a post an hour later, your copy is now wrong unless the tool syncs edits. Check whether yours does, and whether it syncs deletions too — you may or may not want that.
Private invite links. A source you joined through a t.me/+… invite can't be addressed by username. The account has to be a member already, and you'll usually need to pick it from a list rather than type a handle.
Forum topics. In groups with topics enabled, "the group" isn't one destination — each topic is. Make sure your tool can target a specific topic, or your posts will land in the wrong place.
Automating this doesn't change who owns the content. Mirroring your own channels, consolidating channels you run, or carrying a feed you've licensed is all fine. Republishing someone else's original work without permission is a copyright problem no matter which tool performed the copy, and it's the fastest route to a Telegram limit on your account. Our acceptable-use terms set out what we do and don't allow.
If you want the hosted route: open EzForwardBot, connect your account, pick a source and a destination, and choose whether reposts look like your own posts. The free plan covers four connections with instant delivery, no card — pricing.