How Do You Forward Only the Photos From a Telegram Channel?

Two switches working together

The lists decide which kinds are acceptable; media-only mode decides whether an attachment is required at all. Switch on media-only mode, allow "photo", and the destination becomes a stream of pictures and nothing else.

• The allowed media list keeps only the kinds you name: with "photo" allowed, messages carrying a photo pass, and messages carrying a video or a file do not.
• The media lists apply only to messages that carry an attachment. A text-only message is not touched by either list and goes through as usual.
• Media-only mode is the separate switch that drops any message without an attachment, so the surrounding conversation stays out.

Photos sent as files count as documents

The same picture can reach Telegram in two forms: sent as a photo, or sent as a file. The file version is a document, not a photo, and a list that allows only photos will not let it through. Channels that publish high-resolution work often send it as files, so allow both kinds.

Albums: the price of touching the text

When a source publishes several photos as one album, the copy arrives as one album too. There is no switch: it happens by itself as long as the message is relayed untouched.

Any transformation changes that, caption cleanup included: once the rule rewrites the message, each piece has to be recreated individually, and the photos arrive in the right order but no longer bound together as one album. Choose deliberately: whole albums with untouched captions, or cleaned captions with the pieces arriving separately.

Acting on what a screenshot says

A screenshot is a photo, so it passes the media filter, and to a keyword rule it is empty, because there are no words to match. Reading the text inside images changes that: what is found in the picture is joined to the message before the filters run, so a keyword whitelist or a minimum length sees the screenshot like any other text.

That reading is one of the AI features: it belongs to the Platinum plan, it is charged against prepaid AI credits separate from the subscription, and it is not part of the 7-day trial.

Keeping a light destination

A picture stream builds up fast. If the destination is meant to show what is new rather than keep an archive, the copy can delete itself after a while: one hour, six hours, twenty-four hours or seven days. It removes only the copy, in your own destination, and never the original. Part of the paid plans from Smart upwards.

Setting it up

1. Create the rule and choose the source channel and the destination.
2. In the media filter, allow "photo", and "document" as well if the channel sends pictures as files.
3. Switch on media-only mode so messages without an attachment are dropped too.
4. Leave replacements, headers and text cleanup off on that rule if albums should stay whole.
5. If the channel publishes as screenshots and you filter by keyword, switch on reading text inside images.