Message history lives in the group Journal: one feed where every message appears together with the bot's verdict, deleted messages included. Open any entry to see why the bot decided that way — and to dispute a mistake. How far back it goes depends on your plan — 7 days on Free, 30 on Basic, 90 on Pro and 365 on Business. CSV export is a Business feature.
Want to set this up? Do it right in your Telm account.
Open in your dashboard1Where message history lives
Message history lives in the group Journal. Open a group and choose Journal in the group menu — the feed is the first tab. Old links to the standalone history page and to the former Messages tab land here automatically.
The journal shows every processed message with its verdict right next to it, and keeps two companion tabs — Appeals and Action history — so you can move from what the bot did to the message it acted on.
2One feed, two companion tabs
Keeping messages, verdicts and actions under one Journal is deliberate: moderation questions almost always need them together. The feed answers most of them on its own; two tabs cover the rest.
- Journal — every message with the bot's verdict and action beside it. Open an entry to see the reason in plain words, the signals behind it and what exactly happened — and to press “This is not spam” if the bot got it wrong.
- Appeals — ban appeals from your members, with one-click approve or reject.
- Action history — the log of concrete actions taken (deletes, mutes, bans, kicks), useful for auditing what happened to a member; every entry links back to the decision behind it.
3How long history is kept
Every group has a retention window: messages older than the window are automatically removed from history. The window is set by your plan:
- Free — 7 days.
- Basic — 30 days.
- Pro — 90 days.
- Business — 365 days.
4Browsing the feed
The feed shows messages newest-first, grouped by day. Search by text or author, filter by verdict, and use Load more to page further back through the retained window.
Because the feed only holds what is inside your plan's window, browsing stays fast even on large, busy groups — you are paging through a bounded history, not the entire lifetime of the chat.
5Deleted messages
Deleted messages stay in the feed: an entry keeps the full text even after the message is removed from the chat, and the action badge shows what was done. This is what makes the feed useful for review rather than just a mirror of the live chat — you can read exactly what a spammer posted before it was deleted, which is often the clearest evidence when judging an appeal.
Every entry ties the verdict and the message together: open it to see why the bot decided that way. From the Action history, View decision on any action opens the same card.
6Exporting the journal
You can export the journal — moderation actions and messages — to a CSV file for reporting or your own records. The export follows the filters and period you have set, so you can pull a specific window rather than everything.
7Upgrading and what it does to history
Retention extends forward, not backward. When you move to a higher plan, the longer window applies from that moment on — the bot simply keeps new messages for longer. Messages that were already dropped under your old, shorter window cannot be brought back, because they are no longer stored.
The practical takeaway: if you anticipate needing a long paper trail — for compliance, disputes, or an investigation — extend the window before you need it, not after, so the history you want is already being kept by the time you go looking for it.