Get a Telegram Message When a Torrent Finishes on Your Seedbox

This is the most popular Liteflow flow: the moment a download completes on your seedbox, your phone buzzes with the torrent’s name, size and ratio. It uses the Torrent Finished trigger on your seedbox and a Telegram bot that only talks to you.

Set Up Telegram (Complete Guide)

You need two things from Telegram: a bot token (so Liteflow can send messages) and a chat ID (so it knows where to send them). Both take about two minutes and you only do this once — every Telegram flow can reuse the same connection.

1. Create your bot with BotFather

1. In Telegram, search for @BotFather (the official one has a blue verification tick) and open the chat.
2. Send /newbot.
3. When asked for a name, type anything — this is the display name, for example My Seedbox.
4. When asked for a username, it must be unique and must end in bot, for example johns_seedbox_bot. If Telegram says it is taken, try another.
5. BotFather replies with a message containing your token. It looks like 7123456789:AAF3k9… — a number, a colon, then a long string. Copy the whole thing.

Keep the token private. Anyone who has it can send messages as your bot. If it ever leaks, send /revoke to BotFather to get a new one, then update the connection in Liteflow.

2. Start a chat with your bot

Telegram bots cannot message you until you message them first. Open the chat with your new bot (BotFather gives you a t.me/… link) and press Start or send any message. Skipping this step is the number-one cause of a “chat not found” error later.

3. Find your chat ID

Either method works — use whichever you prefer.

Method A — the official way, no third-party bot. In a browser, open this address with your token in place of YOUR_TOKEN:

https://api.telegram.org/botYOUR_TOKEN/getUpdates

You will see text like this — your chat ID is the number after "chat":{"id"::

{"ok":true,"result":[{"update_id":12345,"message":{"message_id":1,"from":{"id":987654321,…},"chat":{"id":987654321,"first_name":"John","type":"private"},"text":"/start"}}]}

If the result is empty ("result":[]), send your bot another message and reload the page.

Method B — a helper bot. Search for @getmyid_bot in Telegram, press Start, and it replies with Your user ID. For a private chat with your own bot, your user ID is the chat ID. This is the method the Telegram step in Liteflow suggests in its hint box.

Sending to a group or channel instead

• Group: add your bot to the group, send a message in the group, then use Method A — the group’s chat ID is a negative number (for example -1001234567890 for a supergroup). By default bots only see messages that mention them or start with /; to let the bot read everything in a group, send /setprivacy to BotFather, pick the bot, and choose Disable.
• Channel: add the bot as a channel administrator (Post Messages permission), then use @yourchannelname as the chat ID for public channels, or the numeric ID from Method A for private ones.

4. Connect Telegram in Liteflow

1. In the flow, click the Telegram step. Under Connection choose Create connection.
2. Give it a name (for example My Telegram bot) and paste the bot token. Save.
3. Enter your Chat ID in the Chat Id field.
4. Click Test step. A message should appear in your Telegram chat within a few seconds. If it does, you are done — the same connection is now available to every other Telegram flow you build.

Formatting the message

• The Message box accepts plain text with values from earlier steps; click into it to insert fields such as the torrent name or ratio.
• Set Format to Markdown or HTML if you want bold or links. In Markdown, characters like _ and * in torrent names can break the message — use HTML (<b>…</b>) for anything that includes release names.
• Turn on Disable Web Page Preview if your messages contain links and you do not want big preview cards.
• Disable Notification sends the message silently — handy for the daily report.

Telegram errors and what they mean

Open the template

1. From the client area, open your seedbox service and click Open Liteflow on the Automation card.
2. Click Create New → Start from Template and choose Telegram alert when a torrent finishes.
3. Click Use Template, keep Personal Project, and Confirm. The flow opens in the builder with every step in place.

Fill in the Telegram step

1. Click Send Telegram message. Under Connection choose Create connection and paste your bot token.
2. Enter your Chat ID.
3. The Message is pre-filled with the torrent name, size and ratio. Click into it to add or remove fields from the trigger.

Optional: only some torrents

Click the Torrent Finished trigger and enter a label under Only for Label (for example tv) to be told only about that label. Leave it empty for everything.

Test and publish

1. Click a step and use Test step to see real data from your seedbox before going live.
2. Click Publish. The flow is now on; the switch on the Automations page turns it off again.
3. Open Runs whenever you want to see what fired and what each step returned.

If Something Does Not Work

• No message arrives — open Runs. A red Telegram step usually means a wrong chat ID, or you never sent the bot a first message.
• The seedbox step fails — open Connections and reconnect My seedbox (rTorrent). It uses the same username and password as ruTorrent.
• Messages for old torrents — the trigger only fires for torrents that finish after you publish.

Variations

• Prefer Discord or email? The same template exists for both: Discord alert and Email me when a torrent finishes.
• Want it only at night or only for big files? Add a Router step between trigger and message.

More

New to Liteflow? Start with Liteflow: Automate Your Seedbox. Want a template that is not here? Click Suggest it on the Automation card in the client area.