We have all been there. You find a course file, a movie, or a project archive on Telegram that is over 1GB. You start the download via the Web or Desktop client, watch the progress bar pick up speed, and then you make the mistake of switching tabs or walking away to grab a coffee.
Ten minutes later, you check back. The progress bar hasn’t moved. The speed is 0 B/s. The download is stuck at 99%.
That gigabyte of data you successfully pulled is now a useless, orphaned file, forcing you to start the transfer from scratch.
While reading about this, realized the problem isn’t that Telegram is slow. The problem is that browsers and OSs hate long-running background tasks.
So, I created TeleDM (Telegram Download Manager). It solves this fundamental frustration by providing…
We have all been there. You find a course file, a movie, or a project archive on Telegram that is over 1GB. You start the download via the Web or Desktop client, watch the progress bar pick up speed, and then you make the mistake of switching tabs or walking away to grab a coffee.
Ten minutes later, you check back. The progress bar hasn’t moved. The speed is 0 B/s. The download is stuck at 99%.
That gigabyte of data you successfully pulled is now a useless, orphaned file, forcing you to start the transfer from scratch.
While reading about this, realized the problem isn’t that Telegram is slow. The problem is that browsers and OSs hate long-running background tasks.
So, I created TeleDM (Telegram Download Manager). It solves this fundamental frustration by providing a robust, “fire and forget” way to download files from Telegram using the core protocol, eliminating the need to keep a tab in focus.
What is the Problem We’re Addressing?
The core problem TeleDM addresses is the fragility of large file transfers within the standard Telegram ecosystem.
Telegram is amazing for chat, but when you use it to download files exceeding 2GB, you hit a wall. Users consistently report:
- Downloads failing silently when the app is
- The “Start From Zero” bug: If a download is interrupted, the official Desktop client often fails to resume and restarts from 0%.
- Link Expiry: Browser-based downloads rely on signed URLs that expire after an hour. If your internet is slow and the download takes 70 minutes, it will fail at the 60-minute mark.
The Technical Reality: Why Downloads Fail
It’s not just “bad Wi-Fi.” It is a software friction problem.
The Browser/OS Sabotage: Modern operating systems (iOS, Android, Windows) and browsers (Chrome, Edge) are obsessed with battery life and RAM. If a tab is in the background, the OS aggressively throttles its network access. A 2GB download requires a sustained, active connection. The moment you multitask, the OS sees the background process as “unnecessary” and kills the socket. 1.
The Bot API Limit: Most developers try to solve this by building a simple Telegram Bot. But the standard Bot API has a hard limit: it cannot download files larger than 20MB. It is useless for the files that actually cause problems (movies, datasets, archives).
How TeleDM Solves It: The Architecture
TeleDM fixes these issues by abandoning the “Chat Client” approach and adopting a “Download Manager” architecture.
- Bypassing the Bot Limit (MTProto)
TeleDM uses the native Telegram Client API (MTProto) via the Telethon
- It does not act like a
- It authenticates as you (the user).
- This removes the file size limit, allowing downloads of up to 2GB (or 4GB for Premium users) directly.
- The Headless Advantage
TeleDM runs as a system process, not a browser tab. It will happily utilize 100% of your bandwidth to download a file while you play a game, lock your screen, or switch workspaces. The OS does not throttle it because it doesn’t rely on UI focus to stay alive.
- Robust Queue Management
Instead of trying to swallow the file in one go, TeleDM manages downloads in a persistent queue.
- Persistence: If your internet cuts out, TeleDM keeps track of the download state in a local database.
- Automatic Retries: If a download fails, the manager automatically queues it for retry, ensuring temporary network blips don’t kill your download.
Current Features (v1.0.0)
As of today, TeleDM is a functional application designed to do one thing well: Download reliably.
- ✅ MTProto Integration: Direct, high-speed connection to Telegram’s Datacenters.
- ✅ GUI Interface: A clean, modern graphical interface for managing downloads.
- ✅ CLI Interface: Simple command-line usage for pasting links and starting downloads.
- ✅ Large File Support: Successfully tested on files >2GB.
Roadmap: What’s Coming Next?
We are actively working to turn this from a script into a full-fledged application. Here is what is in the pipeline:
- Resumable Downloads: Checks existing file size on disk before starting; resumes automatically if a partial file is found.
- Multi-Threading: optimizing chunk requests to maximize bandwidth saturation.
- Docker Support: A containerized version to run TeleDM on your NAS or Home Server easily.
- Task Scheduling: Schedule heavy downloads for 3 AM when data is cheap or speed is fast.
Contributions Are Most Welcome!
This project was born out of personal frustration, but I know I’m not the only one facing this. TeleDM is open-source, and we need help to make it the ultimate Telegram utility.
Whether you are a Python pro, a UI designer, or just someone who wants to test it and break it — your contributions are appreciated.
Check out the repo, star it, and open a PR: 👉 github.com/ADPer0705/TeleDM