Back to blog
documentation

Capturing Telegram messages β€” text, images, and video

The core idea behind Laraue Boards is that work is already happening in Telegram. A client request, a bug report, a photo of something that needs fixing β€” these are all tasks, they just haven't been structured yet. Laraue Boards captures them directly.

Forwarding a message to the bot

The simplest way to capture a message:

  1. Long-press any message in any Telegram chat
  2. Tap Forward
  3. Choose @laraue_boards_bot as the recipient
  4. The message appears in your Backlog immediately

This works for text messages, photos, videos, voice messages, documents, and mixed media.

What gets captured

When you forward a message, Laraue Boards saves:

  • The text content of the message (up to 4096 characters)
  • Photos β€” stored and shown as thumbnails on the issue card
  • Videos β€” stored with progressive streaming support, so they play immediately without waiting for a full download
  • Sender name and source chat name β€” shown on the card for context
  • Timestamp β€” when the original message was sent

What is not captured: reactions, replies, forwarded-from attribution chains, and voice message transcriptions.

Media in issue cards

If an issue has attached photos or videos, a horizontal strip of thumbnails appears on the card β€” up to four visible, with a +N overlay if there are more. The strip is horizontally scrollable.

Tapping any thumbnail opens the media viewer: a full-screen view with navigation between all attachments. Videos play with native controls. The viewer shows a 2 / 5 counter when there are multiple files.

Media in the issue detail

The issue detail view shows a 3-column grid of all media files above the text content. Tapping any item opens the viewer at that position.

Text-only issues

A message does not need text to become an issue. A photo with no caption becomes a media-only issue β€” the card shows the thumbnail strip without any text below the header.

Manually created issues

Issues created by tapping + Add card on a board column are not linked to any Telegram message. They have the same fields (content, status, attributes) but no sender, source chat, or media from Telegram.

Supported media types

Type Supported
Photos (JPEG, PNG, WebP) βœ“
Videos (MP4, MOV) βœ“ with progressive streaming
GIFs βœ“ treated as video
Voice messages -
Documents / files -
Stickers -