dm-relay-bridge

A small two-way DM relay:

• A discord.py bot listens for DMs from one allowlisted Discord user ID (and ignores everyone else and all guild messages).
• A Telethon user session (your own Telegram account) forwards each allowed DM to a configurable Telegram chat — e.g. your Poke chat — sent as your own account.
• Incoming replies in that Telegram chat are relayed back into the same Discord DM.
• Files are relayed in both directions: Discord DM attachments are downloaded and sent via Telethon send_file (message text becomes the caption when it fits Telegram's 1024-char caption limit), and media/documents from the Telegram chat are downloaded and re-uploaded as Discord attachments — oversized files produce a [relay] note instead.
• When the Telegram target is typing, the bot shows a typing indicator in the Discord DM (mirrored via Telethon UserUpdate events; since Discord's indicator expires after ~10s it's re-triggered while Telegram keeps sending typing updates, and stops once the reply is relayed).

Configuration is loaded from a .env file (see .env.example). Core logic is a single file (relay.py, ~300 lines) with long-message splitting and automatic reconnect.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• A Discord bot token
• Telegram api_id / api_hash and a Telegram account you can log in to interactively once

Setup

1. Discord bot token

1. Go to the Discord Developer Portal → New Application.
2. Open your app → Bot → Reset Token → copy the token (this is BOT_TOKEN).
3. On the same Bot page, enable the Message Content Intent (required so the bot can read DM text).
4. The bot can only DM users it shares a server with: go to OAuth2 → URL Generator, select the bot scope (no permissions needed), open the URL, and invite it to any guild the allowlisted user is in.
5. Find the allowlisted user's numeric ID: enable Discord Settings → Advanced → Developer Mode, right-click the user → Copy User ID (this is USER_ID).

2. Telegram api_id / api_hash

1. Log in at my.telegram.org with your Telegram account.
2. Go to API development tools → create an application → copy api_id (TG_API_ID) and api_hash (TG_API_HASH).

3. Configure

cp .env.example .env

Fill in .env:

Variable	Description
BOT_TOKEN	Discord bot token from step 1
USER_ID	The only Discord user ID whose DMs are relayed
TG_API_ID / TG_API_HASH	From my.telegram.org
TG_SESSION	Path for the Telethon session file, e.g. ./tg_session
TG_TARGET	Telegram chat to relay to: @username, phone number, numeric chat ID, or me (Saved Messages)

4. Run

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python relay.py

On the first run, Telethon prompts for your phone number and the login code Telegram sends you (plus your 2FA password if enabled). It then writes the session file to TG_SESSION; later runs are non-interactive.

Once running, DM the Discord bot from the allowlisted account — messages appear in the Telegram chat, and replies there come back to the Discord DM.

Notes & security

• Access control: only USER_ID can use the relay. All other users' DMs and all guild messages are ignored.
• Messages you send in the Telegram chat (outgoing) are never echoed back to Discord, so there is no loop.
• Typing mirroring is one-way (Telegram -> Discord) and only reacts to the configured TG_TARGET chat; typing updates from anyone else are ignored.
• Messages longer than the Telegram (4096) or Discord (2000) limits are split automatically. Attachments are relayed as real files via temporary downloads (always cleaned up), not as URLs.
• Never commit .env, *.session, or *.session-journal — they're in .gitignore. Anyone holding your session file or api_hash can act as your Telegram account; anyone holding the bot token can act as the bot.
• If a side disconnects, the clients reconnect automatically; a crash restarts the relay after 5 seconds.