01 ‐ Installation - jacopotediosi/OctoPrint-Telegram GitHub Wiki

Follow the sections below in order when installing OctoPrint-Telegram for the first time.

Creating a Telegram Bot

If you already have a bot, you only need its token to proceed. You can skip directly to the Plugin Setup section.

Contact @BotFather on Telegram. You can either click the link or use the search feature in your Telegram app to find "@BotFather".
Send the /newbot command to @BotFather. You’ll be asked to choose a name for your bot (e.g., OctoPrint Bot), followed by a unique username.
The username must end with bot. For privacy, it's recommended to choose a username that is hard to guess if you don't want others to contact it.
BotFather will then provide you with a token, which you'll need in the next steps. Store this token securely and never share it.

Plugin setup

Install the plugin by searching for Telegram Notifications in the bundled Plugin Manager, or manually using the following URL:
```
https://github.com/jacopotediosi/OctoPrint-Telegram/archive/master.zip
```
Restart OctoPrint when prompted after the installation is complete.
After restarting OctoPrint, a Setup Wizard dialog should appear automatically. If it doesn’t, you can still proceed by opening the OctoPrint Settings and selecting "Telegram" from the sidebar.
Fill out the Telegram Plugin Wizard form. Most importantly, paste the token provided by BotFather into the Telegram bot token field and click the Test above token button to verify it.
Optionally, you can also enter an ImgBB API key. This step is not required. If provided, it enables thumbnail previews of your G-code files (generated by the Slicer Thumbnails plugin) when browsing files through Telegram.

Additional requirements

Some plugin features require additional dependencies to be installed separately.

Gifs generation

The plugin can generate GIFs (i.e., short videos from the webcam) either when enabled for a specific notification message or in response to the /gif and /supergif commands.

By default, gifs generation is globally disabled. To enable it, you must check the Enable GIFs option in the plugin settings.

Before doing so, you need to install the following system dependencies: ffmpeg and cpulimit (or limitcpu, depending on your distribution). If you're running OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi or any Debian-based OS, you can install them via SSH with:

sudo apt install ffmpeg
sudo apt install cpulimit
# or, if cpulimit is unavailable:
sudo apt install limitcpu

If cpulimit/limitcpu are not available for your operating system (e.g., on Windows or Android), you can disable their usage by checking the "Don't use cpulimit/limitcpu" checkbox in the plugin settings.

Please note that the FFmpeg path can be customized, after completing the setup wizard, in OctoPrint Settings → Webcam & Timelapse → Timelapse Recordings → Path to FFMPEG.

The Setup Wizard includes built-in checkers for gifs generation requirements, helping you verify if they are correctly installed.

Both the plugin settings and the Setup Wizard include status badges to help you verify whether the required tools for GIF generation are correctly installed on your system.

Suggested OctoPrint plugins

OctoPrint-Telegram can optionally integrate with several OctoPrint plugins. Installing them is not required but unlocks additional features and improves the overall user experience.

Media

MultiCam: allows notification messages and command responses (e.g., /photo, /gif, /supergif) to include snapshots and videos from multiple webcams, combined into a single album.
Octolapse: alternative to the bundled Timelapse plugin, allows receiving advanced timelapse videos as attachments in notification messages for the MovieDone event.

Print information

Installing the following plugins enables additional template variables in notification messages:

DisplayLayerProgress: adds support for {currentLayer} and {totalLayer} placeholders.

File information

Installing the following plugins enrich the /files command output with additional details:

Cost estimator: displays estimated print cost within file details.

Filament

Installing the following plugins allows you to view and manage filament spools via the /filament command:

Power

Installing any of the following plugins enables control of your printer’s power using the /on and /off commands:

Configuration reminder

You’ve completed the plugin installation! To start using it, make sure to configure the permissions for your user.

See the Configuration section for details.