How to add the Telm bot to your Telegram group

1What you need

To protect a Telegram group with Telm you need to be an administrator of that group with the right to add new administrators. If you are the group owner you already have this; if you are a co-admin, make sure your role includes Add new admins, otherwise Telegram will not let you promote the bot.

Setup has three parts: add the bot as a member, promote it to admin with two specific rights, and finish in the dashboard. It takes a couple of minutes and the steps are identical on the Telegram mobile apps and on Telegram Desktop.

You add our bot, @telmcom_bot, exactly like any other member. Until you give it admin rights it behaves as a normal participant and does nothing — moderation only begins once the rights are in place.

• You: an admin of the group who can promote members to admin.
• The bot: @telmcom_bot, added as a member then promoted to admin.
• Two rights: Delete messages and Ban users.
• A Telm account: sign in at telm.com/dashboard with the same Telegram account.

2Add the bot to your group

Open your group, go to the members list and choose Add member, then search for @telmcom_bot and add it. In a public group you can find the bot by username directly; in a private group, add it by username while you are an admin, or from your contacts if you have started a chat with it before.

If you cannot find the bot by search, open a direct chat with @telmcom_bot first (tap Start), then return to the group and add it from your recent contacts. This also confirms you have the correct, official bot.

At this point the bot is a normal member. It cannot read deleted history, cannot moderate, and takes no action — the next step gives it the permissions it needs.

3Grant admin rights

Promote @telmcom_bot to administrator. Open the group members list, tap the bot, choose Promote to admin (or Edit admin rights), and enable the two permissions moderation depends on:

• Delete messages — so the bot can remove spam, scams, phishing links and rule-breaking messages.
• Ban users — so it can mute, kick or ban repeat offenders and raiders; this right also powers new-member restrictions, captcha and the anti-raid shield.

4What happens once it is admin

The instant the bot receives its admin rights, Telegram begins delivering the group messages to it. Every message is checked before anyone can act on it — the CAS global blocklist, the AI moderation model, your content filters and any custom rules you set up. If a message is judged to be spam or a violation, the bot deletes it and applies the action you configured — a warning, mute, kick or ban — usually within a second of the message appearing.

New members are handled separately: depending on your protection level the bot may quietly watch a newcomer's first post, apply temporary restrictions, or require a captcha before they can speak. All of this follows the settings the onboarding wizard writes for you, and every action is recorded in the moderation journal so nothing is hidden.

Because all of this happens automatically in the background, adding the bot does not slow your group down or change how members chat. Honest members never notice it is there.

5Finish in the dashboard

Open telm.com/dashboard and sign in with the same Telegram account you used in the group. The group appears automatically once the bot has joined it — there is no code to copy or link to paste. If it does not show up, refresh; the dashboard picks up new groups within a few seconds.

Select your group and the onboarding wizard launches. It walks you through describing your community, choosing a protection level, confirming the bot rights, and setting a link whitelist for domains you always allow (your site, docs, socials).

If you are not ready to let the bot act yet, you can switch on monitoring mode first. In monitoring mode the bot logs exactly what it would have done without deleting or banning anyone — a safe way to build confidence before going fully live.

6Adding on mobile vs desktop

The flow is the same everywhere, only the taps differ slightly. On mobile, open the group, tap the group name to open its profile, tap the member count, then Add members, and pick @telmcom_bot; to promote, tap the bot in the admins or members list and choose Edit admin rights.

On Telegram Desktop, click the group name to open the profile panel on the right, open the members list, use Add members, then click the bot and Promote to admin.

You can start on one device and finish the dashboard step on another — for example add and promote the bot on your phone, then configure settings on a laptop. Your Telm account ties it together. There is also a mobile app if you prefer to manage everything from your phone.

7Common scenarios

Setup looks slightly different depending on your group:

• Brand-new group: add and promote the bot before you invite members, pick a medium or strict level, and newcomers are screened from the first message.
• Existing, already-spammed group: add the bot, choose a stricter level, and consider running monitoring mode for a day to see what it catches before enforcing.
• Large public group: these attract the most spam, so grant both rights immediately and lean on new-member restrictions and the anti-raid shield.
• Multiple groups: add the bot to each one; you manage them all from a single account. See Managing multiple groups.
• Channel with comments: add the bot to the linked discussion group, not the channel itself, to moderate the comment section.

8Common mistakes and how to avoid them

A handful of easy-to-miss errors account for almost every it-is-not-working message:

• Bot added but not promoted — a plain member cannot moderate. Promote it to admin.
• Only one right granted — Delete messages without Ban users means spam is removed but repeat spammers are never stopped, and vice versa. Grant both.
• Bot demoted later — removing the bot's admin rights silences it and spam returns. Leave it as admin while it protects the group.
• Wrong bot added — a lookalike username does nothing useful and may be a scam. Use exactly @telmcom_bot.
• Signed in with a different account — the dashboard only shows groups where your signed-in account and the bot are both present. Use the account you added the bot with.

9Related topics

Once the bot is in and configured, these guides help you get the most out of it:

• Setting up admin rights — exactly which permissions to grant and why.
• The group onboarding wizard — the five-step guided setup.
• A tour of the dashboard — where every feature lives.
• Monitoring mode explained — try protection without punishing anyone.
• Register and sign in — how the Telegram sign-in works.