Telepipe

A simple command-line utility to send messages or files to Telegram chat directly from your terminal.

Features

• Send messages to Telegram channel/chat/group directly from command line
• File upload support with original filename preservation
• Video streaming support with optimized playback in Telegram
• Message formatting support with Markdown and HTML modes
• Scheduled message delivery with specific time or delay options
• Interactive shell mode for multi-line messaging
• Automatically switch between message and file mode based on content length
• Generate shareable Telegram links
• Quiet/Silent mode for scripting
• Easy installation with guided setup
• Simple configuration

Installation

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/linuxmaster14/telepipe.git
cd telepipe

2. Run the installation script with an optional topic name:

chmod +x installer.sh
sudo ./installer.sh

During installation, you'll need to provide:

1. Your Telegram Bot Token (get it from BotFather)
2. Your Chat ID (can be a group, channel, or user ID)

Usage

# Show help
telepipe --help

# Show version
telepipe --version

# Send a simple message
echo "Hello from my server!" | telepipe

# Send the output of a command
uptime | telepipe

# Send the contents of a file
cat logfile.txt | telepipe

# Send a message without displaying the URL (quiet mode)
echo "Notification" | telepipe --quiet

# Start an interactive multi-line messaging session
telepipe --interactive

# Send formatted messages with Markdown
echo "*Bold text* and _italic text_" | telepipe --format markdown

# Send formatted messages with HTML
echo "<b>Bold</b> and <i>italic</i>" | telepipe --format html

# Send code snippets with formatting
echo 'Check this `inline code` example' | telepipe --format markdown

# Send code blocks
echo -e "\`\`\`bash\necho 'Hello World'\nls -la\n\`\`\`" | telepipe --format markdown

# Schedule messages for future delivery
echo "Daily backup completed" | telepipe --schedule "2025-05-28 09:00:00"

# Send delayed messages
echo "Server maintenance starting" | telepipe --delay 1800  # 30 minutes delay

# Upload files with original names
telepipe --file backup.tar.gz
telepipe --file /path/to/document.pdf
telepipe --file archive.zip --quiet

# Upload videos with streaming support
telepipe --video movie.mp4
telepipe --video /path/to/video.avi

# Upload files/videos with captions
echo "Database backup from $(date)" | telepipe --file backup.sql
echo "Movie night! 🎬" | telepipe --video film.mp4

# Use it in your scripts
backup_db() {
  # backup logic here
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "Database backup completed successfully at $(date)" | telepipe
  else
    echo "Database backup FAILED at $(date)" | telepipe
  fi
}

# Script example with quiet mode
monitoring_check() {
  if ! ping -c 1 server.example.com > /dev/null; then
    echo "Server unreachable at $(date)" | telepipe --quiet && 
    echo "Alert sent"
  fi
}

# Scheduled maintenance notifications
schedule_maintenance_alerts() {
  echo "🔧 Server maintenance starts in 1 hour" | telepipe --delay 3600
  echo "⚠️ Server maintenance starts in 15 minutes" | telepipe --delay 5400
  echo "🚨 Server maintenance starting NOW" | telepipe --delay 6900
}

# Daily report scheduling
schedule_daily_reports() {
  echo "📊 Daily system report: $(date)" | telepipe --schedule "$(date -v+1d '+%Y-%m-%d 09:00:00')"
}

# Automated backup with file upload
daily_backup() {
  local backup_file="backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz"
  tar -czf "$backup_file" /important/data
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "✅ Backup completed successfully at $(date)" | telepipe --file "$backup_file"
  else
    echo "❌ Backup failed at $(date)" | telepipe
  fi
}

# Log file monitoring with upload
check_error_logs() {
  local error_count=$(grep -c "ERROR" /var/log/app.log)
  if [ "$error_count" -gt 10 ]; then
    echo "🚨 High error count detected: $error_count errors" | telepipe --file /var/log/app.log
  fi
}

Options

• -h, --help - Show this help message and exit
• -i, --interactive - Enter interactive mode for multi-line messaging
• -q, --quiet - Quiet mode - suppress output (except errors)
• -v, --version - Show version information and exit
• --format MODE - Set message formatting mode: markdown, html, or none
• --schedule TIME - Schedule message for specific time (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
• --delay SECONDS - Delay message delivery by specified seconds
• --file PATH - Upload a file to Telegram (preserves original filename)
• --video PATH - Upload a video with streaming support (auto-detects video metadata)

Message Formatting

Telepipe supports three formatting modes:

Markdown Mode (--format markdown)

Uses Telegram's MarkdownV2 formatting with automatic escaping of special characters:

• Bold: *bold text*
• Italic: _italic text_
• Inline code: `inline code`
• Code blocks:

  ```language
  code block
  ```
  

Example:

echo "*Important*: Server status is \`ONLINE\`" | telepipe --format markdown

HTML Mode (--format html)

Uses HTML formatting tags:

• Bold: <b>bold text</b>
• Italic: <i>italic text</i>
• Inline code: <code>inline code</code>
• Code blocks: <pre>code block</pre>

Example:

echo "<b>Alert</b>: Database backup <code>COMPLETED</code>" | telepipe --format html

Plain Text Mode (--format none or default)

Sends messages without any formatting - useful when you want to send literal markdown/HTML characters.

Scheduled Message Delivery

Telepipe supports scheduling messages for future delivery in two ways:

Absolute Time Scheduling (--schedule)

Schedule a message for a specific date and time:

# Schedule a reminder for a specific time
echo "Meeting starts in 15 minutes" | telepipe --schedule "2025-05-28 14:45:00"

# Schedule daily reports
echo "Daily backup completed successfully" | telepipe --schedule "2025-05-29 09:00:00"

# Works with formatting
echo "*Important*: Server maintenance begins now" | telepipe --schedule "2025-05-28 22:00:00" --format markdown

Relative Time Delay (--delay)

Delay message delivery by a specified number of seconds:

# Send reminder in 1 hour (3600 seconds)
echo "Backup completed" | telepipe --delay 3600

# Send alert in 30 minutes (1800 seconds)
echo "⚠️ Maintenance window starting soon" | telepipe --delay 1800

# Quick 5-minute delay
echo "Process finished successfully" | telepipe --delay 300

Notes:

• Scheduled messages run as background processes
• The process ID is displayed for tracking (unless using --quiet)
• Scheduling cannot be combined with --interactive mode
• Time format for --schedule is: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
• Scheduled time must be in the future

File Upload

Telepipe can upload files directly to Telegram while preserving their original filenames:

Basic File Upload

# Upload a file
telepipe --file backup.tar.gz
telepipe --file /path/to/document.pdf
telepipe --file ~/Downloads/movie.mp4

# Upload with quiet mode (no URL output)
telepipe --file large-backup.zip --quiet

File Upload with Caption

You can add a caption to uploaded files by piping text to telepipe:

# Add caption from command line
echo "Database backup from $(date)" | telepipe --file backup.sql

# Add caption from another command
hostname | telepipe --file system-report.txt

# Multi-line caption
echo -e "Weekly Report\nGenerated: $(date)\nSize: $(du -h report.pdf)" | telepipe --file report.pdf

Practical Examples

# Backup with timestamp caption
echo "Backup completed at $(date)" | telepipe --file backup-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz

# Log file with context
echo "Error logs from server crash at $(date)" | telepipe --file /var/log/error.log

# Automated script backup
tar -czf backup.tar.gz /important/data && echo "Backup created: $(du -h backup.tar.gz)" | telepipe --file backup.tar.gz

Notes:

• Maximum file size: 50MB (Telegram Bot API limit)
• Supports all file types
• Original filename is preserved
• Cannot be combined with --interactive, --schedule, or --delay options
• Caption text supports the same formatting as regular messages when used with --format

Video Streaming

Telepipe supports optimized video uploads with streaming playback directly in Telegram:

Basic Video Upload

# Upload video with streaming support
telepipe --video movie.mp4
telepipe --video /path/to/video.avi
telepipe --video recording.mov

# Upload with quiet mode
telepipe --video large-video.mp4 --quiet

Video Upload with Caption

# Add caption to video
echo "Movie night! 🎬" | telepipe --video film.mp4
echo "Security footage from $(date)" | telepipe --video camera-feed.mp4

# Formatted caption
echo "*Important*: Training video" | telepipe --video training.mp4 --format markdown

Advanced Features

• Automatic metadata detection: If ffprobe (from FFmpeg) is installed, telepipe automatically detects:

  • Video duration
  • Resolution (width/height)
  • These enhance the streaming experience in Telegram

• Streaming optimization: Videos are sent using Telegram's sendVideo API with supports_streaming=true, enabling:

  • Inline playback in chat
  • Better video player interface
  • Thumbnail generation
  • Progress bar during playback

Install FFmpeg for Better Support

# macOS
brew install ffmpeg

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install ffmpeg

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install ffmpeg

Practical Examples

# Screen recording with timestamp
echo "Screen recording from $(date)" | telepipe --video screen-capture.mp4

# Security camera upload
echo "Motion detected at front door" | telepipe --video security-$(date +%H%M).mp4

# Meeting recording
echo "📹 Team meeting recording - $(date '+%Y-%m-%d')" | telepipe --video meeting.mp4 --format markdown

Video vs File Upload:

• Use --video for: MP4, AVI, MOV, MKV, WebM video files
• Use --file for: Documents, archives, images, audio, or when you want document-style upload

Notes:

• Maximum video size: 50MB (Telegram Bot API limit)
• Supports common video formats (MP4, AVI, MOV, MKV, WebM, etc.)
• Automatic streaming optimization
• Cannot be combined with --interactive, --schedule, or --delay options
• Caption text supports formatting when used with --format

Interactive Mode Formatting

In interactive mode, you can change formatting on-the-fly:

telepipe --interactive
# Then use commands like:
# /format markdown
# /format html
# /status

Configuration

The configuration file is located at /etc/telepipe/config and includes the following settings:

• BOT_TOKEN: Your Telegram bot token from BotFather
• CHAT_ID: ID of the chat where messages will be sent
• MAX_LEN: Maximum message length before sending as file (default: 4096)
• TIMEOUT: API request timeout in seconds (default: 5)
• DISABLE_LINK_PREVIEW: Whether to disable link previews (default: true)

License

MIT

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.