bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1771 stars · 287 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

A Python CLI tool by Bellingcat that checks whether phone numbers are registered with Telegram accounts, retrieving usernames, names, and IDs where available. It uses the Telegram API with a user account's API_ID and API_HASH credentials.

Use cases

• check if a phone number is registered on telegram
• find telegram username linked to a phone number
• osint investigation of phone numbers
• bulk check phone numbers against telegram accounts
• verify contact phone numbers have telegram accounts
• investigative journalism phone number research

When to choose

• you need to verify phone numbers against Telegram during open-source research
• you want a simple pip-installable command-line tool for Telegram phone lookups
• you're doing OSINT or investigative journalism and need Telegram account details for phone numbers

When to avoid

• you need bulk high-volume lookups without risking Telegram account bans
• you don't have a Telegram account with API_ID and API_HASH credentials
• you need lookups on platforms other than Telegram

Facets

cli-tool · maturity active

cli osint search-engine osint messaging-platforms security python cli cross-platform telegram phone-number-lookup open-source-research osint bellingcat command-line

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker")