Command-line options

The authoritative list is ./dumper.py --help; this page mirrors it.

Flag	Effect
--token TOKEN	Telegram bot token to dump. If omitted, the script prompts for one.
--down	Walk message ids downwards, auto-probing the max id when --start-from-id is not set. Best for active bots.
--start-from-id N	Dump downwards starting from message id N (skips the probe).
--resume	Continue an interrupted downward dump from the id saved in last_message_id.txt, keeping the existing folder and history.
--listen-only	Don’t dump history; watch for new messages in real time. On the first one, offers to start a downward dump from its id.
--batch-size N	Number of message ids requested per cycle (default 200; up to 1000 works in practice).
--lookahead N	After an all-empty batch, keep scanning N more batches before giving up. Useful when ids are sparse.
--no-photos	Skip downloading user profile photos (avatars).
--no-media	Skip downloading photos and documents inside messages; metadata is still written to the text history.
--no-history	Don’t write per-chat <chat_id>_history.txt. Combine with --users-csv for the lightest possible run.
--users-csv	Write users to a single <bot_id>/users.csv instead of <user_id>/<user_id>.json directories.
--tor	Route through a local Tor SOCKS5 proxy on 127.0.0.1:9050.
--output DIR	Directory to save the dump (default ./<bot_id>).
--no-listen	Exit after dumping history instead of listening for new messages.

Credentials are not flags: API_ID and API_HASH are read from the environment (see Quick start).