How to Add a Bot to a Telegram Group
To add a bot to a Telegram group, open the group’s member screen, choose Add Member, and search for the bot’s exact username. Keep it as a regular member if ordinary group permissions cover its task. Promote it only when its job needs administrator rights.
Add the bot
- Open the group profile.
- Select Add Member.
- Enter the full bot username.
- Select the correct bot and confirm.
Some bots expose a startgroup link that opens Telegram’s group picker. This is optional; adding the bot from the member list does not depend on it.
Regular member or administrator?
A bot that only responds to commands or sends allowed messages may work as a regular member. Administrator rights are not an automatic requirement for every bot.
Promote it for moderation, deleting other people’s messages, restricting members, managing topics, or another protected action. Enable only the individual rights used by its code.
What can a bot see in a group?
New bots use Privacy Mode by default. They receive commands addressed to them, replies to their messages, messages sent through them, and service events—not every ordinary group message.
Bot administrators receive all group messages except messages from other bots. A bot with Privacy Mode disabled does too. Telegram recommends disabling privacy only when necessary; after changing it, re-add the bot to the group.
Permissions and Privacy Mode are different: permissions control what the bot may do; Privacy Mode controls which group messages arrive in updates.
Why the bot may not respond
- The command was not addressed to its username.
- Privacy Mode filters ordinary messages.
- Group permissions block the required message type.
- The backend is stopped or uses another token.
- An administrator removed or restricted the bot.
Publishing to a group
A Bot API bot can send messages when it belongs to the group and chat permissions allow the action. The current Soft Lite POST Bot also checks that the selected publishing bot is an administrator of the target chat. For this application, promote your own bot with the minimum necessary rights.
Find the group ID
An integration may require the numeric Chat ID. Telegram can share it through the group selector, a public supergroup username, or available forward metadata. See How to Find a Telegram Group or Chat ID.