Telegram Bot for Video Downloading & Delivery
A production-ready Telegram bot with 102 nodes that handles video scraping, ffmpeg transcoding, S3 storage, subscription management, and multi-format delivery from 50+ platforms.
The challenge
Users need a simple way to download videos from YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, and dozens of other platforms — and receive them in their preferred format. Managing downloads, formats, file sizes, and subscriptions across multiple platforms requires significant orchestration.
The solution
We built a Telegram bot (102 nodes) that runs on n8n with full ffmpeg processing, platform detection, subscription management, and S3-backed delivery:
- Telegram trigger: users send URLs and receive instant format selection options
- Platform detection: automatically detects the video platform (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) from the URL
- yt-dlp integration: executes yt-dlp via shell to extract metadata, available formats, and download video/audio
- ffmpeg transcoding: converts between formats (MP4, WEBM, MKV, AVI, MOV, GIF) and handles resolution changes, compression, and audio extraction
- Format selection: users choose from a list of available formats with duration, resolution, and size info
- S3 storage: downloaded files uploaded to S3, signed URLs generated with expiration times
- Subscription webhooks: users subscribe to channels/platforms and receive automatic updates when new content is posted
- MongoDB persistence: stores user profiles, downloads, subscription history, and command logs
- Error handling: supports 50+ platforms with graceful fallbacks for unsupported URLs, network errors, and content restrictions
- Admin monitoring: sends download reports and error notifications to the Killia team via Telegram
Results
- Supports downloads from 50+ video platforms
- Full ffmpeg transcoding pipeline handles any format conversion
- Subscription system delivers automatic content updates
- S3 + signed URLs ensure secure, temporary file access
- 102 nodes managing commands, formats, subscriptions, downloads, and error handling
Business Problems
- Downloading videos from different platforms requires different tools and methods
- Format conversion between platforms is complex and requires ffmpeg expertise
- Managing file sizes and delivery across multiple platforms manually
- No automatic subscription tracking for channels or content platforms
Key Benefits
- Single Telegram interface for 50+ video platforms
- Automatic format selection with metadata (resolution, duration, size)
- ffmpeg transcoding handles any format conversion
- S3 storage with signed URLs for secure temporary access
- Subscription system delivers automatic content updates
- Full command history and user profiles stored in MongoDB
Application Details
- Telegram bot with custom commands and reply keyboard interface
- yt-dlp for video metadata extraction and downloading
- ffmpeg for format conversion (MP4, WEBM, MKV, AVI, MOV, GIF, audio)
- S3 storage with signed URLs (configurable expiration)
- MongoDB for user profiles, downloads, subscriptions, and logs
- Subscription webhooks for automatic content updates
- Admin monitoring via Telegram with error notifications