Turn Telegram Photo Announcements Into a Text-Only Bulletin

If your Telegram announcements arrive as single photos whose captions already say everything, you can publish just those captions as a clean text bulletin. In RedFox Auto Forward Telegram, give the bulletin its own task, turn on Cleaner → Photo, keep Show Forward Header off and leave Cleaner → Text off. Exclude captionless photos, albums and other media types—including images sent as files—using the type-filter settings below; leave ordinary text eligible.

The result is a readable feed of notices that people can scan, search and copy, rather than another wall of flyers. You no longer retype each announcement into a staff chat or digest. Your source channel keeps its pictures, while the bulletin carries the words that matter.

This guide covers RedFox Auto Forward Telegram, @AutoForwardNew_Bot. RedFox develops and operates the product; Auto-Bot.io publishes this guide. The older @Auto_Forward_Messages_Bot username is historical, so use the current handle. The settings below come from the official Cleaner, Filter By Type and Forward Header documentation.

When a caption-only bulletin beats reposting the picture

Imagine a community team that publishes every workshop as a photo of its flyer. The caption repeats the title, time, room and registration link. Volunteers coordinate in a separate group, where they need those details in a form they can reply to, quote and find later. A tall poster image adds nothing that the caption has not already said.

That is the job this workflow handles. Telegram stores a photo and its caption as separate parts of a message: the Telegram Bot API Message object lists photo and caption as different fields. RedFox’s Cleaner removes content from a message rather than blocking the entire post. Applied to photos on a dedicated task, it lets the caption continue as an ordinary text message.

A text-only bulletin is a good fit when:

• The caption is the announcement. The picture decorates the notice but carries no unique instruction.
• Readers act on the words. They copy a room number, open a link or reply with a question.
• The destination is a working space. A coordination group, staff channel or handover log benefits from compact, searchable entries.

Keep the photo route when the image itself carries information: a map, a seating plan, a QR code, a product variant or a chart. Removing that picture removes the information, no matter how tidy the bulletin looks.

Agree on a caption-complete notice

The automation is only as useful as the captions it receives. Before turning anything on, agree a simple rule with whoever posts in the source channel: every notice must be complete without its picture. That one sentence turns a hopeful setting into a dependable publishing contract.

A caption-complete notice states:

• What is happening, in a clear first line;
• When and where, with the time, place or online room;
• What to do, with a visible link or contact rather than “scan the poster”;
• Any condition that matters, such as what to bring or who may attend.

Here is a fictional example of a caption that works on its own:

Community Workshop: Intro to Bookbinding
Saturday, 10:00–12:00 · Room B, Riverside Library
Bring A4 paper and a ruler. Beginners welcome.
Register: https://example.org/workshops/bookbinding

Watch for phrases that point back to the picture, such as “details in the flyer”, “see image” or “scan to join”. They make sense beside a photo and become dead ends in a text bulletin. Ask source authors to put that information in the caption itself.

Text printed inside the image is not part of the caption. If some sources publish image-only posters, those posts need a different job, covered below; this bulletin should not pretend to read them.

Configure one bulletin task

Use a separate task for the bulletin so that any existing photo route keeps working exactly as before. Choose a source you run or have permission to republish; removing its forward header does not grant reuse rights. For the rehearsal, use both a private test source and a private test destination you control, so sample posts do not reach a real audience. The task creation guide documents the path: Forwarding List → Create Task + → choose the source → Next Step → choose the target → Next Step → label → Create Task. A new task is activated when you create it, so select those private endpoints before creating it.

Then open the task. The Cleaner guide places the controls under the task’s Filters section, where the Cleaner tab sits beside the type filters. Set them like this:

• Cleaner → Photo: on. Removes the picture so the caption can continue as text. This is a content edit, not a skip rule.
• Cleaner → Text: off. The Cleaner guide describes it as removing messages that contain any text, with or without media. That would remove the very words you want.
• Show Forward Header: off. The header option keeps the original “Forwarded from” presentation, like a native Telegram forward. A transformed bulletin needs the task to post its own edited copy instead.
• Filters → Photo Only: on. Excludes photos with no caption. They have nothing to contribute to a text bulletin.
• Filters → Album: on. Excludes grouped photos and videos. Keep albums on a route designed for them rather than flattening a set into one entry.
• Filters → Photo and Photo With Text: off. Either one would exclude the captioned single photos that feed this bulletin.
• Filters → Video, Document, Animation (GIF), Audio, Voice, Video Note, Sticker and Poll: on. Exclude these other formats so an unexpected upload cannot turn the text bulletin back into a media feed. Document includes a flyer uploaded as a file, even if it looks like a photo. Leave the Text exclusion off so ordinary written notices remain eligible.

The most common slip is choosing the wrong “Photo” switch. In Filter By Type, turning a filter on excludes that message type, so Filters → Photo blocks the whole post, caption included. Cleaner → Photo is the setting that keeps the post and changes its content.

Two optional refinements are worth deciding now:

• Link previews. A text message containing a link may show a preview card in Telegram. If you want compact entries, the Cleaner guide documents URL Preview for removing embedded link previews. Do not use the separate URL option for this, because that is for stripping links—exactly what your registration link must not lose.
• Source credit. With the forward header off, readers no longer see where a notice came from. If they need that context, add a short header line to the task; the headers, footers and cleaners guide covers templates.

This workflow needs an account plan that includes Cleaner and type filters; check that access before setting it up. If a toggle is locked, compare plans with /upgrade in the bot or Join Premium in the mobile app, as described in RedFox’s upgrade guide. Basic forwarding access alone does not establish access to these controls.

Check fresh posts before readers see it

With both endpoints set to your private test chats, send the following new posts to the private source. Each checks a different part of the setup, including whether a picture uploaded as a file slips past the photo controls.

Compare post A closely with its source. Check the first line, every line break, the link destination and any emphasis that carries meaning. If you also use other edits on this task—Replace rules, removed mentions or a header—confirm their combined result on the same sample rather than assuming each setting behaves the same way alone.

If post A arrives as a photo, confirm that Cleaner → Photo saved and that Show Forward Header is off. If A disappears, check exclusions such as Photo, Photo With Text, Link or keyword rules, and confirm Cleaner → Text is off. If B fails too, check Cleaner → Text and Filters → Text as well as task status and endpoint permissions. For any other excluded format your source actually uses, add a fresh sample of that format and confirm it stays out.

Once the checks pass, stop the test task before editing it to use the real source and bulletin destination. Read back both endpoints, the saved content rules and the sender’s posting permission before starting it again, then review its first appropriate new entries. Keep the existing photo route unchanged. This check covers new announcements, not earlier history. If a published notice needs correcting, send an authorized new correction rather than assuming this setup synchronizes later edits.

Keep these posts on a different route

A focused bulletin works because it refuses posts that do not fit. These neighbouring jobs have their own answers:

• Image-only posters whose details exist only inside the picture: use the separate event poster OCR caption workflow. Text recognition needs the image, so run it on its own route rather than on this caption-only task.
• Albums that should arrive as complete sets: leave them to a media route. The album delivery modes guide explains how grouped media is handled there.
• Flyers uploaded as files, videos and other non-photo media: this bulletin excludes their whole posts; it does not extract their captions. Ask authors for a standalone written notice or keep those uploads on the original media route.
• Photos or captions disappearing by accident on an existing route: that is a diagnosis, not a bulletin design. Start with why Telegram photos or captions are not forwarding.
• Removing bold, italic and linked styling from text you already forward: see forwarding Telegram posts without formatting.
• Keeping very large videos and documents out of a summary destination: see the file-size briefing feed guide.

Run the bulletin from Web or mobile

Once it is set up, the bulletin task runs without anyone repackaging notices by hand. Active tasks run in RedFox’s cloud, and the official FAQ confirms that your own device does not need to stay online. Closing the management screen therefore does not pause the task; use the task’s own controls when you need to stop it.

Manage the task from the Web app, the iOS app or the Android app, which offer fuller task management; the Telegram bot remains an entrypoint. For the wider product and its other routing options, see the RedFox Auto Forward Telegram overview.

Start with private test endpoints and check both retained notices and excluded formats. When the captions read well on their own, your readers get a bulletin they can act on, and your team stops retyping announcements.

FAQ

Will Cleaner → Photo remove pictures from my other tasks?

Cleaner settings belong to the task you configure. Set them on the dedicated bulletin task and leave any existing photo route unchanged.

What happens to a photo that has no caption?

With Filters → Photo Only on, the task excludes it. There is no caption to publish, so the bulletin simply skips that post.

Can the bulletin include text printed inside the image?

Not with this setup. A caption is a separate field from the picture. For posters whose details exist only in the image, use the OCR workflow on its own route.

Why does Show Forward Header need to be off?

The header option presents posts like native Telegram forwards from their original source. A bulletin needs an edited copy without the picture, so turn the header off on this task and add your own header line if readers need source credit.