# bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker

Check if phone numbers are connected to Telegram accounts.

Repository: https://github.com/bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/telegram-phone-number-checker
Homepage: https://pypi.org/project/telegram-phone-number-checker/
Language: Python
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: command-line, open-source-research, phone-number, python, telegram
Last push: 2026-08-17T11:54:14+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 87/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 66, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2023, "days_push": 16, "days_rel": 16, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1771, forks 287 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:34.130043+00:00)

## What it is
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
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: cli, osint, search-engine
- domain: osint, messaging-platforms, security
- platform: python, cli, cross-platform
- tags: telegram, phone-number-lookup, open-source-research, osint, bellingcat, command-line

## Member repositories
- bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker (main) score 87

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:34.130043+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:25:59.670709+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:34.130043+00:00, sha f28e28148134)
  - homepage: https://pypi.org/project/telegram-phone-number-checker/ (fetched 2026-08-29T11:04:14.381623+00:00, sha 4b4e8fead74a)
  - registry_pypi: https://pypi.org/pypi/telegram-phone-number-checker/json (fetched 2026-08-29T11:04:14.390661+00:00, sha 5ca199f27035)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.