Receiving submissions via Telegram: Our Memory Book

Contributors can submit memories through the Memorybook Telegram bot.

How it works

The contributor starts a conversation with the Memorybook bot on Telegram.
They send your book code to identify which book they're contributing to.
They follow the prompts to submit text and/or photos.

Enabling Telegram

Open your book's Channels page and flip the Telegram switch. Telegram is on by default for new books when your plan and our platform both support it; you can always pause it from the same page.

What contributors can send

Text messages
Photos (up to 20 MB each). They can be sent with or without a caption; if a photo is sent without a caption, the bot saves the photo as a submission on its own.
Multiple photos at once. Telegram media groups (albums) are automatically combined into a single submission.

Channel features

Session persistence: after the first message with a book code, follow-up messages go to the same book without repeating the code.
Contributor identity: the sender's Telegram name, username, and chat ID are captured and linked to their user account.
Media group batching: when a contributor sends multiple photos at once (an album), they are grouped into a single submission rather than creating separate entries.
Duplicate protection: webhook retries do not create duplicate submissions.
Rate limit: 20 submissions per hour per chat ID.

Bot commands

Contributors can use these commands in the Telegram chat:

/start BOOKCODE: Connect to a book. Also supports Telegram deep links. Sending /start with no code shows your Telegram Chat ID (useful for linking your account on the website).
/switch BOOKCODE: Switch to a different book without the current message being saved as a story.
/book: Show which book you're currently connected to.
/books: List every book you're a member of. Requires linking this chat to your account first (see below).
/signup: Create an Our Memory Book account from this chat. Bot replies with a one-time link to finish on the web.
/newbook TITLE: Create a new memory book and bind this chat to it. If you have a paid plan slot, the bot asks which plan to use; otherwise the book is created on the Free plan automatically.
/stories: View your 5 most recent submissions to the current book.
/help: List all available commands.

Linking your Telegram account

If you have an Our Memory Book account, you can link your Telegram identity so that memories you send via Telegram are matched to your profile.

Send /start (with no book code) to the bot. It will reply with your Chat ID.
Go to Account Settings on the website and paste your Chat ID into the Telegram section.
Save. Any submissions previously sent from that Telegram account will be automatically linked to your profile.

Tips

Telegram users can block the bot at any time to stop receiving messages.
Share the bot link alongside your other submission options.
Email verification (verified contributor mode) is not available for Telegram submissions.

Photo dates

For memory-collection books (those dated by when the memory happened — the default for tributes, weddings, birthdays and the like), if a contributor sends a photo without a date attached (chat apps often strip it in transit), the bot may reply asking when it was taken. They just reply with a date like “June 2015” or “6/10/2025” and we'll place the memory in the right spot on the timeline — or they can reply skip if they’re not sure. Personal-journal books (dated by when it was shared) don’t ask; the photo is simply dated by when it arrives.

If a photo doesn’t arrive

On the rare occasion a sent photo can’t be saved (a transient download hiccup), the bot replies telling the contributor to send it again rather than a normal confirmation, so nothing is ever silently dropped.