Telegram Nearby Map: How to Find Nearby Users and Their Approximate Locations

Have you ever wondered if you could find Telegram users close and get a sense of where they are? You can with Telegram Nearby Map! Today, we’re going to talk about how this smart tool uses OpenStreetMap and Telegram to help you find people nearby.

We’ll show you how to set it up and discover the interesting world of nearby connections on Telegram. It won’t show exact locations though to protect your privacy. Get ready to discover a new way to connect with others through this interesting tool.

Telegram Nearby Map uses OpenStreetMap and the official Telegram library to find the position of nearby users.

Please note: Telegram’s API was updated a while ago to make nearby user distances less precise, preventing exact location calculations. Therefore, Telegram Nearby Map displays users nearby, but does not show their exact location.

Inspired by Ahmed’s blog post and a Hacker News discussion. Developed by github.com/tejado.

How does it work?

Every 25 seconds all nearby users will be received with TDLib from Telegram. This includes the distance of every nearby user to “my” location. With three distances from three different points, it is possible to calculate the position of the nearby user.

This only finds Telegram users which have activated the nearby feature. Per default it is deactivated.

Installation

Requirements: node.js and an Telegram account

1. Create an API key for your Telegram account here
2. Download the repository
3. Create config.js (see config.example.js) and put your Telegram API credentials in it
4. Install all dependencies: npm install
5. Start the app: npm start
6. Look carefully at the output: you will need to confirm your Telegram login
7. Go to http://localhost:3000 and have fun

Changelog

2023-09-23

• Switched to prebuild-tdlib
• Updated all dependencies
• Bugfix of the search distance field

2021-11-13

• Added tdlib.native for Linux (now it works in GitHub Codespaces)
• Updated all dependencies
• Bugfixes