How to copy posts from a Telegram channel that blocks forwarding

You tap forward on a post, and nothing happens. No forward icon, no copy option, and selecting the text does nothing either. The channel owner has turned on "restrict saving content", and Telegram is doing exactly what they asked.

This post explains what that setting really blocks, why the usual workarounds fail, and how to legitimately republish posts from a source like that into a channel you run.

What "restrict saving content" actually does

It's a channel-level switch in Telegram (Channel settings → Administrators → Restrict saving content). When it's on, Telegram's clients hide forwarding, copying, saving media and screenshots on that content.

Two things are worth being precise about:

1. It's enforced by the client, not by cryptography. The post is not encrypted differently. Your account can still read it — that's the whole point of you being subscribed. What's removed is the UI that would let you re-share it.
2. It applies to the content, not to your membership. You keep full read access. Nothing about the restriction stops you from reading the message and typing it out again by hand.

That second point is the important one, because it tells you what's actually possible.

Why the common workarounds don't work

Adding a bot to the channel. Bots can only read a channel they've been added to, and you usually can't add a bot to a channel you don't own. Even where you can, Bot API forwarding respects the same restriction.

Screenshot-and-repost. It works for one post. It does not work for forty posts a day, and you lose all the links and formatting.

A "forward bot" you give your login to over chat. Please don't. Anything that asks you to paste a login code into a Telegram chat is asking you to hand over your account, and the code arrives in the same app the attacker is talking to you in. Legitimate tools take your phone number and login code over HTTPS in a web form or Mini App, never in a chat message.

The three approaches that do work

1. Ask the channel owner

Genuinely the first thing to try, and people skip it. Many owners are happy to be mirrored if they're credited, and some will simply add you as an admin, which sidesteps the whole problem. It costs one message.

2. Copy the content rather than forward it

This is the mechanism every working tool uses. Instead of asking Telegram to forward message 4,812 — which the restriction blocks — you read the message with an account that has access, then publish its text and media as a new post. From Telegram's point of view your channel is publishing an original message that happens to contain the same content.

Practically this needs:

• A logged-in Telegram user account (not a bot) that is a member of the source. Only a user account can read a restricted source.
• Somewhere to put it, i.e. a channel or group where you can post.
• A process that runs continuously, so posts arrive as they're published rather than whenever you next check.

The trade-off is that a copied post doesn't carry a "forwarded from" label. If you want attribution, you have to add it yourself — a header line, or a footer crediting the source. Some tools do that automatically.

3. Have it done for you

Running this yourself means a server, a Telegram API app, a session file to keep alive, and something to restart it when Telegram flood-limits you. tgcf is a good open-source option if that sounds like a fun weekend. Otherwise a hosted service does the same thing without the maintenance — EzForwardBot is ours, and copying from restricted sources works on the free plan.

The part where you have to be careful

Being technically able to republish something is not the same as being allowed to.

• Copyright doesn't disappear because a workaround exists. If the source is someone else's original work, republishing it commercially without permission is an infringement, restriction setting or no restriction setting.
• The restriction is a stated wish. Someone turned it on deliberately. Mirroring their paid signal channel into your own free one is the kind of thing that gets you reported, and rightly.
• Telegram's terms still apply, and accounts that mass-copy other people's content get limited or banned.

The uses that are fine are the ordinary ones: mirroring your own channels into each other, consolidating channels you run, republishing a feed you've licensed or been given permission to carry, or building a private archive of something you have rights to. That's what our acceptable-use terms allow, and we do act on reports.

Setting it up with EzForwardBot

For the record, end to end:

1. Open EzForwardBot and connect your Telegram account — phone number, then the login code, entered in the app over HTTPS. Never in a chat.
2. Create a connection: pick the restricted channel as the source and your channel as the destination.
3. Choose how reposts should look — as your own posts, or with an attribution line naming the source.
4. Add filters if you want them: keyword include/exclude, skip repeats, minimum length, media only.

New posts copy across from that point on, usually within a second or two. The free plan covers four connections with instant delivery and no card, and copying from restricted sources isn't paywalled — see pricing.

Related

• EzForwardBot vs Junction bot — how we compare on private and protected sources
• Build a Telegram aggregator channel — many sources into one clean feed
• Mirror trading signals into your own channel

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