Finding the Chat ID of a Telegram group or channel
3 min read
For leads to land in a group, the system has to know the group's numeric ID. Finding it takes a few seconds, but anyone meeting it for the first time gets stuck right here.
Why @username is not enough
Every chat in Telegram has a permanent numeric identifier. An open channel may also have an @username, but a private group has none at all — which leaves the number as the only reliable value the system can work with.
That is why Yuboraman accepts only a number in the Telegram chat field. It is still a number even when it starts with a minus — below we look at where the minus comes from.
The shortest route: connect it automatically
There is no need to hunt for the ID by hand at all. In the Connections section you pick “Add group”, choose which bot it runs through and press “Choose group in Telegram”.
Telegram opens its own window, you pick the group — the bot joins it and the chat comes back into the panel by itself. Nothing to copy, nothing to check, nowhere to make a typo.
The same route works for a channel, with one condition: the bot has to be added to the channel as an admin. It needs the right to post messages and to edit them — otherwise the lead messages never reach the channel.
By hand: add the bot and send /start
If you added the bot to the group yourself, you can ask it for the ID. Send /start in the group — the bot answers with that group's Chat ID. That is the number you copy into the panel.
In a channel /start does not work, because you cannot post an ordinary message there. Forward any post from the channel to the bot instead, and then send /start.
If forum topics are switched on in the group, you can also set which topic the message lands in. For that you turn on the “This group uses forum topics” checkbox in the integration and enter the Topic ID; to learn the Topic ID, send /start to the bot inside that topic.
What the minus and the -100 mean
The shape of the number tells you the type of chat:
- A private chat — a positive number, no minus
- An ordinary group — starts with a minus, for example -123456789
- A supergroup and a channel — start with -100, for example -1001234567890
So dropping the minus in front of the ID, or cutting off the -100, is the most common mistake. Copy the number whole, exactly as it is.
When a group turns into a supergroup
When an ordinary group moves to a supergroup, Telegram gives it a new ID. The old number stops working, and it happens quietly — the group still looks like the same group.
Yuboraman detects this and sends you a message: the group has been updated, the Chat ID has to be set again. The same holds in the other cases — the bot is blocked, removed from the group or stripped of its admin rights, or the forum topic is deleted — the notification comes with the reason named.
That matters, because a failure on the Telegram side is usually silent: the message does not go out and nobody notices. A warning with the reason named breaks that silence.