Unlimited cloud storage via Telegram

Encrypt → Chunk → Upload to your private Telegram channel.
No servers. No limits. No trust required.

pipx install televault  ·  Docs  ·  Quick Start  ·  Architecture

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System Architecture

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Why TeleVault?

	TeleVault	Cloud Storage
Cost	Free (Telegram account)	$5-30/month
Storage Limit	Unlimited	15 GB - 2 TB
Encryption	AES-256-GCM client-side	Server-side or none
Trust Model	Zero-trust (you hold the key)	Trust the provider
File Size	Up to 2 GB per file	Varies
Speed	8 parallel chunk uploads	Single connection
Low-resource	Built-in mode for weak machines	N/A

TeleVault turns a private Telegram channel into encrypted, unlimited cloud storage. No local database — everything lives as pinned messages and reply chains in the channel. Your password never leaves your machine.

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Features

• End-to-end encryption — AES-256-GCM with scrypt key derivation. Telegram only sees ciphertext.
• Parallel transfers — 8 upload, 10 download concurrent chunks. 256 MB default chunk size.
• Resumable uploads/downloads — CRC32-protected progress files survive interruptions.
• Data safety — Atomic config writes, sequential index access (asyncio.Lock), cached index lookups, crash-safe delete/upload/stream.
• Low-resource mode — --low-resource flag for machines with <2 GB RAM (32 MB chunks, 2 parallel ops).
• Progress display — Phase icons, chunk counter, EMA-smoothed speed (e.g. 3/8 chunks 12.3 MB/s).
• Git-like backups — Incremental snapshots with retention policies.
• FUSE mount — Mount your vault as a local filesystem with on-demand streaming.
• WebDAV server — Access files over HTTP from any device.
• Terminal UI (beta) — Interactive file browser with detail panel.
• Piping — cat file | tvt push -, tvt cat file | jq, tvt ls --json.
• Auto-backup — Schedules, systemd timers, file watching.
• Garbage collection — Find and remove orphaned messages (dry-run by default, auto-cleans stale index entries).
• Async I/O — Non-blocking file hashing with ThreadPoolExecutor + aiofiles.

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Installation

pipx install televault

# Optional extras
pipx install televault[fuse]       # FUSE mount support (Linux/macOS)
pipx install televault[webdav]     # WebDAV server
pipx install televault[preview]    # Image preview (Pillow)

Python 3.11+ is required. pipx is recommended for CLI tools — it installs into an isolated environment so your system Python stays clean.

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Quick Start

# 1) Login (will prompt for API credentials from https://my.telegram.org)
tvt login

# 2) Set up storage (interactive — validates channel, sends test message)
tvt setup

# 3) Upload
tvt push photo.jpg

# 5) List
tvt ls

# 6) Download
tvt pull photo.jpg

# 7) Stream to stdout
tvt cat photo.jpg > photo_copy.jpg

# 8) Preview without full download
tvt preview photo.jpg

# 9) Check channel info
tvt channel

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Usage

Core Commands

tvt push <file>              # Upload a file (use - for stdin)
tvt pull <file>              # Download (use -o - for stdout)
tvt ls [--json]              # List files
tvt cat <file>               # Stream file to stdout
tvt preview <file>           # Preview without full download
tvt find <query> [--json]    # Search files
tvt info <file> [--json]     # Detailed file info
tvt stat [--json]            # Vault statistics
tvt rm <file>                # Delete file
tvt verify <file>            # Verify integrity
tvt gc [--force]             # Garbage collection (dry-run by default)
tvt whoami                   # Show account info
tvt login                    # Authenticate
tvt setup                    # Configure channel (interactive)
tvt channel                  # Show channel info
tvt tui                      # Launch terminal UI (beta)

Pipeable I/O

echo "hello" | tvt push - --name note.txt
cat config.json | tvt push - --name config.json
mysqldump mydb | tvt push - --name backup.sql

tvt cat config.json | jq '.database'
tvt ls --json | jq '.[].name'
tvt find "backup" --json | jq '.[].size'

Low-Resource Mode

For machines with limited RAM or CPU (<2 GB RAM):

tvt push bigfile.zip --low-resource
tvt pull bigfile.zip --low-resource

Uses 32 MB chunks, max 2 parallel operations, single-threaded hashing. Peak RAM usage ~64 MB.

Backup & Restore

tvt backup create /data --name daily
tvt backup create /data --name incr --incremental
tvt backup list
tvt backup restore <id> --output /restore
tvt backup prune --keep-daily 7 --keep-weekly 4
tvt backup verify <id>

Virtual Drive

# FUSE mount with on-demand streaming
tvt mount -m ~/televault-drive

# WebDAV server
tvt serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080

Auto-Backup

tvt schedule create /data --name daily --interval daily
tvt schedule install daily     # systemd timer (Linux)
tvt schedule list
tvt watch --path /data        # Watch for changes

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Security

Your Machine                              Telegram Servers
─────────────                             ────────────────
Original File
     │
     v
┌──────────────┐
│  BLAKE3 Hash │  ◄── Chunk integrity
├──────────────┤
│ zstd Compress│  ◄── Optional, skips incompressible files
├──────────────┤
│ AES-256-GCM  │  ◄── scrypt-derived key, per-chunk salt+nonce
├──────────────┤     44 bytes overhead per chunk
│  BLAKE3 Hash │  ◄── Ciphertext integrity
├──────────────┤
└──────────────┘
     │
     v
  Encrypted chunks sent via MTProto
     │
     v
  Telegram only sees encrypted blobs

Your password never leaves your machine. Telegram servers see only encrypted data and JSON metadata references.

If you lose your password with encryption enabled, there is no recovery.

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Data Safety

• Retry logic — All operations retry 3x with exponential backoff + FloodWait handling
• Sequential index access — asyncio.Lock prevents concurrent uploads from overwriting each other
• Atomic config writes — Temp file + os.replace + fsync prevents corruption on crash
• Upload cleanup — Failed uploads automatically delete orphaned messages
• Hash verification — Every chunk verified with BLAKE3 on download
• Original hash — Separate pre-encryption hash catches wrong-password errors
• Progress integrity — CRC32 checksums on resume files detect corruption; partial files preserved on failure
• Crash-safe stream — Single index save with correct filename, no double-save window
• Cached index lookups — O(1) message ID fetch prevents data loss from index scans
• Garbage collection — Dry-run by default, pinned messages always protected, stale entries auto-cleaned
• Async hashing — File hashing runs in thread pool, never blocks the event loop
• Input validation — FileMetadata, ChunkInfo, VaultIndex validate fields on deserialization

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Configuration

Config: ~/.config/televault/config.json

{
  "channel_id": -1003652003243,
  "index_msg_id": 42,
  "snapshot_index_msg_id": 150,
  "chunk_size": 268435456,
  "compression": true,
  "encryption": true,
  "parallel_uploads": 8,
  "parallel_downloads": 10,
  "use_async_io": true,
  "low_resource_mode": false,
  "max_retries": 3,
  "retry_delay": 1.0
}

Credentials: ~/.config/televault/telegram.json (set interactively via tvt login, or via env vars TELEGRAM_API_ID / TELEGRAM_API_HASH for advanced use)

Log: ~/.local/share/televault/televault.log

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Project Structure

src/televault/
├── __init__.py        # Version
├── cli.py             # Click CLI — command dispatch, friendly errors, progress display
├── core.py            # TeleVault class — upload, download, list, search, stream
├── telegram.py        # TelegramVault — MTProto client, channel ops, index, compression
├── models.py          # FileMetadata, ChunkInfo, VaultIndex, TransferProgress
├── chunker.py         # File splitting/merging, ChunkWriter, BLAKE3, async hashing
├── crypto.py          # AES-256-GCM, scrypt KDF, streaming encrypt/decrypt
├── compress.py        # zstd compression, extension-based skip
├── config.py          # Config dataclass, atomic persistence, directory resolution
├── retry.py           # Exponential backoff, FloodWait handling, @with_retry decorator
├── backup.py          # BackupEngine — snapshot CRUD, prune, verify
├── snapshot.py        # Snapshot, SnapshotFile, SnapshotIndex, RetentionPolicy
├── fuse.py            # TeleVaultFuse — on-demand streaming with LRU cache
├── webdav.py          # WebDAV server (aiohttp)
├── preview.py         # PreviewEngine — terminal previews from headers
├── watcher.py         # FileWatcher — polling, BLAKE2, exclude patterns
├── schedule.py        # Schedule CRUD, systemd timers, cron generation
├── gc.py              # Orphan message detection and cleanup
├── utils.py           # Shared utilities (format_size, format_speed)
├── logging.py         # RotatingFileHandler setup
└── tui.py             # Textual TUI — file browser, detail panel (beta)

tests/
├── test_chunker.py
├── test_compress.py
├── test_crypto.py
├── test_fuse.py
├── test_models.py
├── test_models_v2.py
├── test_preview.py
├── test_retry.py
├── test_schedule.py
├── test_snapshot.py
├── test_telegram_helpers.py
└── test_webdav.py

See ARCHITECTURE.md for detailed system design.

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide.

Quick start:

git clone https://github.com/YahyaToubali/televault.git
cd televault
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pipx install -e ".[dev,fuse,webdav,preview]"

pytest tests/ -v          # Run 157 tests
ruff check src/           # Lint

All PRs target the dev branch. main is only updated on release.

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Disclaimer

Not Affiliated with Telegram

TeleVault is an independent, community-driven open-source project. It is not endorsed by, affiliated with, or officially connected to Telegram or Telegram FZ-LLC in any way.

Telegram Terms of Service Compliance

Using Telegram channels as file storage is not the explicitly intended use of the platform. While Telegram's Bot API and MTProto API are publicly available and TeleVault uses them through legitimate means, this use case exists in a gray area of Telegram's Terms of Service. Users should be aware that:

• Telegram may change their terms, API limits, or storage policies at any time without notice
• Excessive automated usage could trigger rate limits or account restrictions
• Telegram reserves the right to revoke API access for any reason
• There is no guarantee of data permanence on Telegram's servers
• Files or channels may be removed if Telegram deems them in violation of their policies

User Responsibility

By using TeleVault, you accept sole responsibility for:

• Complying with Telegram's Terms of Service
• Complying with Telegram's API Terms of Service
• The legality of any files you store through this tool
• Maintaining your own backups of important data (do not rely on TeleVault as your only copy)
• Keeping your encryption password safe (there is no recovery mechanism if lost)

No Warranty

This software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied. The authors and contributors are not liable for any data loss, account restrictions, service interruptions, or any other damages arising from the use of this software.

Recommendation

Users should use TeleVault for personal backup purposes only. Please respect Telegram's rate limits, avoid commercial-scale storage operations, and never use this tool for distributing illegal content. If you are unsure whether your use case complies with Telegram's policies, review their terms directly or seek legal advice.

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License

MIT License — See LICENSE for details.

Author: Yahya Toubali · @yahyatoubali