A Step-by-Step Telegram Chat Analysis Guide

How to export Telegram history in a machine-readable format and what you can actually do with the JSON.

Apr 10, 2026 · 4 min read

Use Telegram Desktop, not mobile

Mobile Telegram can only export as a plain text transcript. Telegram Desktop can export machine-readable JSON, which preserves reactions, replies, and forwarded-message attribution. For any serious analysis, use the desktop client.

Choose JSON

Three dots → Export chat history → Format: Machine-readable JSON. Skip photos and voice notes unless you want them; they balloon the file size and don't affect text analysis.

What the JSON gives you that a .txt doesn't

Reply threads (who replied to whom), reactions (per-message emoji), forwarded-message provenance, and message edits. These are features no WhatsApp export carries, and they let the analysis distinguish 'reacted' from 'replied' — two very different signals.

Analyzing group chats

Telegram groups are where things get interesting — you can compute who-talks-to-whom as a graph, identify cliques, and watch the structure of the group evolve over time. Two-person chat analysis is a special case of this.

Upload and pick a template

Once you've got the JSON, upload it and pick Academic, Retro, or MBTI. The parser handles Telegram's format natively — no pre-processing required.