How to get telegram chat invite link using telethon?

Question

I'm trying to get the invite link of a public channel and a public group.

I tried using the ExportChatInviteRequest function but it raises a ChatAdminRequiredError.

The thing I don't understand is why can I see and get the invite link of a public channel \ group with the telegram app but can't get it with telethon?

I use version 1.26.1:

from telethon.tl.functions.messages import ExportChatInviteRequest

async def main():
    chat = await client.get_entity('https://t.me/bestmemes')
    invite = await client(ExportChatInviteRequest(chat))
    print(invite)

raises:

telethon.errors.rpcerrorlist.ChatAdminRequiredError: Chat admin privileges are required to do that in the specified chat (for example, to send a message in a channel which is not yours), or invalid permissions used for the channel or group (caused by ExportChatInviteRequest)

can someone help me, please?

I can see the invite of the given channel via the telegram app:

Answer 1

I did this:

1. Create a private chat with a bot or a friend
2. Retrieve api_id and api_hash from https://my.telegram.org/auth
   • Login to your telegram account using your phone number
   • Click "API Development tools"
   • Fill in your application details
   • Click on "Create application" at the end
   • Copy App api_id and App api_hash

from telethon import TelegramClient
from telethon.tl.functions.messages import ExportChatInviteRequest

session = 'Test'  # The first-part name of a sqlite3 database - "Test.session"
                  # Contains user name and password to your Telegram account

# App ID and hash key to identify your Telegram App
api_id = 12345                                  # Use your own api_id
api_hash = '1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV'   # Use your own api_hash

# Create a connection to your telegram account using this app
# You will be asksed phone number, password, which will be stored into
# "Test.session" sqlite3 database
client = TelegramClient(session, api_id, api_hash)

async def main():
    # Send a hello message to yourself
    await client.send_message('me', 'Hello!')
    
    # Send a hello message to a private chat group
    await client.send_message('https://t.me/+xxxxxx', 'Hello!')

    # Get a specific chat via its primary link
    group = await client.get_entity('https://t.me/+xxxxxx')

    # Retrieve chat info which include secondary link
    invite = await client(ExportChatInviteRequest(group))
    
    # Print secondary link
    print(invite.link)
  
with client:
    client.loop.run_until_complete(main())

Answer 2

The ExportChatInviteRequest method you are trying to use creates a private chat link. Obviously you can't do this if you're not an administrator

Here is a small code example that gets links to all open chats

async def get_chat_links():
    dump = {}

    # get all dialogs
    for dialog in await client.get_dialogs():
        chat = dialog.entity

        # if the dialog does not have a title attribute, then it is not a group
        if hasattr(chat, 'username') and hasattr(chat, 'title'):
            dump[chat.title] = f'https://t.me/{chat.username}'

    # for example, let's save everything to a file
    with open('dump.json', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as file:
        json.dump(dump, file, indent=4)

with client:
    client.loop.run_until_complete(get_chat_links())

I would like to add some explanation about hasattr(chat, 'username') . For some chats you will have https://t.me/None . These are just the same closed chats that do not have an open link to join. But the ExportChatInviteRequest function will not work for these chats either, because it CREATES a link, and does not receive it. And if you are not an administrator in this chat you will get an error