I'm using the WTelegramClient library in a .NET application to load all my Telegram dialogs and their recent messages. I want to get the avatar (profile picture) of each dialog as a remote Uri, not download files to disk. This is to display user/chat icons in a UI via HTTP without local storage.
Here’s the relevant part of my current code:
protected override async Task ExecuteAsync(CancellationToken stoppingToken)
{
var user = await _client.LoginUserIfNeeded();
Console.WriteLine($"Logged in as {user.username ?? user.first_name}");
var dialogs = await _client.Messages_GetAllDialogs();
var scope = _services.CreateScope();
var store = scope.ServiceProvider.GetRequiredService<IMessageStore>();
foreach (var chatBase in dialogs.chats.Values.OfType<Chat>())
await store.AddOrUpdateChatAsync(chatBase);
foreach (var usr in dialogs.users.Values.OfType<User>())
await store.AddOrUpdateUserAsync(usr);
var dialogsFiltered = dialogs.dialogs.OfType<Dialog>().ToList();
foreach (var dlg in dialogsFiltered)
{
InputPeer peer = null!;
if (dialogs.chats.TryGetValue(dlg.peer.ID, out var chatPeer))
peer = chatPeer;
else if (dialogs.users.TryGetValue(dlg.peer.ID, out var usrObj))
peer = new InputPeerUser(dlg.peer.ID, usrObj.access_hash);
if (peer is null) continue;
var history = await _client.Messages_GetHistory(peer, limit: 50);
foreach (var msg in history.Messages.OfType<Message>())
await store.SaveOrUpdateMessageAsync(msg);
// Here's where I want to get the dialog icon URI
}
await Task.Delay(Timeout.Infinite, stoppingToken);
}
Question: Is there a way to get a remote URL or public URI for a user's or chat's avatar (like https://t.me/i/userpic/...) using WTelegramClient, instead of downloading and serving them myself?
If this is not possible directly, is there a workaround to show user/chat avatars in a web UI without saving them locally?
I tried using this method to download profile pictures, but it saves them as local files instead of giving me any usable Uri:
private async Task<string?> GetAvatarUriAsync(IPeerInfo peer)
{
try
{
var peerName = peer switch
{
User u => $"{u.id}",
ChatBase c => $"{c.ID}",
_ => null
};
if (peerName == null) return null;
var avatarDir = Path.Combine(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(), "avatars");
Directory.CreateDirectory(avatarDir);
var fileName = $"{peerName}.jpg";
var fullPath = Path.Combine(avatarDir, fileName);
var stream = new FileStream(fullPath, FileMode.Create);
var avatarStream = await _client.DownloadProfilePhotoAsync(peer, stream, true);
stream.Close();
stream.Dispose();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Avatar download failed: {ex.Message}");
}
return null;
}
Answer
It's not possible.
As Telegram is a secure & encrypted messenger, all media & data stored in Telegram is inaccessible from normal web access.
The only exception is a public preview for some public channels via URLs like https://t.me/s/ProxyMTProto
With WTelegramClient, you can download media to memory (via MemoryStream) if you don't want to save them to disk