Uploaded March 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In this How To... episode, Tech Community Lead Galen Reich talks you through how to use the Bellingcat Telegram Phone Number Checker, a Python tool that allows you to check if phone numbers are connected to Telegram accounts, retrieving usernames, names, and IDs where available.
To use the tool you need to be familiar with Python and the command line, you can find a walkthrough of the basics of the command line here: youtu.be/B3gm-ud91v0?si=iwCPthXs6qHbDpIa
Find the tool itself here: github.com/bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker
Password and credential management guidance can be found here: ssd.eff.org/module-categories/basics
You can join our discord server on this link: discord.gg/bellingcat
And you can find all of our open-source research tools on our GitHub at: github.com/bellingcat
In this How To... episode, Tech Community Lead Galen Reich talks you through how to use the Bellingcat Telegram Phone Number Checker, a Python tool that allows you to check if phone numbers are connected to Telegram accounts, retrieving usernames, names, and IDs where available.
To use the tool you need to be familiar with Python and the command line, you can find a walkthrough of the basics of the command line here: youtu.be/B3gm-ud91v0?si=iwCPthXs6qHbDpIa
Find the tool itself here: github.com/bellingcat/telegram-phone-number-checker
Password and credential management guidance can be found here: ssd.eff.org/module-categories/basics
You can join our discord server on this link: discord.gg/bellingcat
And you can find all of our open-source research tools on our GitHub at: github.com/bellingcat
![Preserve Vital Online Content With Bellingcats Auto Archiver Tool [outdated instructions]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VfAhcuV2tLQ/mqdefault.jpg "Preserve Vital Online Content With Bellingcats Auto Archiver Tool [outdated instructions]
Update: This video was made as a guide to a previous version of the Auto Archiver tool. Were currently working on a new video for the updated tool, we expect this to be published in April 2025. In the meanwhile, you can ask questions about the tool on our Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/bellingcat in the tool support channel.
Open source research often relies on social media posts that contain videos and images. However, these posts can be taken down by platforms or deleted by those posting them. That’s why Bellingcat has created a tool, the Auto Archiver ( https://github.com/bellingcat/auto-archiver ), to help the open-source community, as well as journalists and researchers, quickly and easily archive online content. In this video, Miguel Ramalho details how to set up and use the tool.")
