Read-only Telegram in Claude: why it matters

Short answer: a read-only Telegram connector lets Claude or ChatGPT list your chats, search them and read messages, but never send, edit, delete or mark anything as read. That matters because many Telegram MCP servers do all of those things, and an assistant that can write as you, or silently tell your contacts you read their message, can cause real damage. Fezola's Telegram connector is read-only by design: its client only issues read requests.

Why read-only matters for Telegram

Your Telegram account is personal. It holds private conversations, family groups and work chats, and every message you send or read is visible to someone. Three things can go wrong when an assistant has more than read access:

• Sending. An instruction hidden in a message you ask the assistant to read (a prompt injection) could try to make it send something as you. A connector that cannot send closes that door.
• Marking as read. On Telegram, "read" is visible to the other person. A read tool that marks chats as read changes what your contacts see, without you having opened the message.
• Deleting or editing. Irreversible actions deserve a human decision.

Read-only does not make the assistant useless: catching up on what you missed, finding the address someone sent you, listing the messages you have not answered. All of that only needs reading.

What the options look like

As of November 2026, Claude and ChatGPT have no built-in Telegram connector. The ways to add one differ a lot:

Type	What it sees	Can it write?	Where it runs
Bot-token connectors	Only chats with the bot, or groups it joined; not your private conversations	Depends on the bot	Varies
Self-hosted user-account servers, for example alexandertsai/mcp-telegram	Your own chats, like your Telegram app	That one can send, edit, delete and forward messages, and its read tool marks history as read (per its README, checked 8 November 2026)	Your computer, with your own API credentials
Fezola	Your own chats, like your Telegram app	No: read-only	Hosted by Fezola, nothing to install

Some other open-source servers are read-only too, so check the tool list of whichever one you pick: a tool that looks harmless can still change state.

What Fezola does, verified in the code

• The Telegram client is documented in the code as read-only: only read requests are sent (conversation list, history, search). Nothing is sent, and history is read without the call that marks it as read.
• Four tools are exposed: list_telegram_chats, list_recent_telegram, get_telegram_chat and search_telegram. None writes.
• In groups, the assistant catches up on messages that mention you or reply to you. Each message says whether you wrote in the conversation since, and whether it is unread, so the assistant can tell you what is unanswered.
• Messages are read live from Telegram and not stored. Logs keep the route and the error code, never message content or phone number.
• The login code and your two-step password are sent to Telegram and forgotten. Only the resulting session is kept, encrypted.

The honest caveat

To read your private chats, any connector that uses your own account needs a Telegram session, which is a login on your account. Fezola signs in like a new device: it appears as Fezola in Telegram under Settings, Devices, where you can end it whenever you want, and disconnecting in Fezola also logs the session out at Telegram. But read-only comes from Fezola's code, not from a restriction Telegram applies to the session. If you do not want to trust any third party with that, a self-hosted read-only server is the alternative.

Connect Telegram to Claude or ChatGPT

1. Create a free Fezola account. The free plan includes 2 sources: Telegram and one mailbox, for example.
2. Open Telegram in the Fezola menu and click Connect Telegram. Enter your phone number in international format, then the code Telegram sends you in the app. If you use two-step verification, enter your Telegram password too.
3. Add Fezola to your assistant. In Claude: Customize, Connectors, + Add, Add custom connector, paste https://api.fezola.com/mcp. In ChatGPT (paid plans): Settings, Apps & Connectors, Advanced settings, turn on Developer mode, then create a connector with the same URL.
4. Approve the access and ask: "What did I miss on Telegram today?" or "Which private messages have I not answered this week?"

The step-by-step guide has more: Telegram in Claude and ChatGPT. To see how it fits with other tools, read best email MCP servers, and for the broader safety picture, is it safe to connect your email to an AI?.