IntegrationsBeginner

How to send photos, documents, and files with a Telegram bot

Upload local images and documents, or share remote URLs, through the Telegram bot API.

7 minBeginner

Text is only part of what bots can send. Telegram has dedicated endpoints for photos, documents, audio, and video. This guide covers the three ways to send a file: a public URL, a local upload, and a reused file ID.

What you need

A bot token and a chat ID
A file to send (local path or public URL)
curl for testing

Step 1: Send a photo from a URL

The fastest path is to hand Telegram a public image URL. Telegram fetches it for you, so there is nothing to upload.

curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/sendPhoto" \
  -d chat_id=58291043 \
  -d photo="https://picsum.photos/600" \
  -d caption="Photo by URL"

Step 2: Upload a local file

For files on your own disk, send multipart form data. With curl, the -F flag and an @ prefix upload the file directly.

zsh - upload a document

$curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot$TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN/sendDocument" \

$ -F chat_id=58291043 \

$ -F document=@"./report.pdf"

{"ok":true,"result":{"document":{"file_id":"BQACAgIAAx...","file_name":"report.pdf"}}}

Reuse the file_id

Every successful upload returns a file_id. Pass that same id next time instead of the file path and Telegram serves the cached copy instantly, with no re-upload.

Step 3: Pick the right method

Content	Method	Notes
Image shown inline	sendPhoto	Compressed by Telegram
Any file kept as-is	sendDocument	No compression, keeps name
Voice or music	sendAudio	Shows a player
Short looping clip	sendAnimation	GIF or muted mp4