There is a particular kind of annoyance that hits when you need Telegram data in a hurry. You are in a group with a few thousand people, or a channel full of photos, and you want a member list or all the media in a folder. Telegram will let you have it, eventually, but the path is not obvious and the built in tools are shaped for backups, not for the small targeted export you actually want.
I have done this enough times that I have a mental decision tree now. This post is that tree, focused on the two things people ask for most: a clean list of who is in a group, and the media out of a chat or channel.
Know what "have access to" means
Before anything, the rule that governs all of this: you can export what your own account can already see. Members of a group you are in, messages in chats you are part of, media in channels you follow. You cannot conjure participant lists that a channel hides, or pull from places you have not joined. Any tool promising otherwise is selling you a ban risk. Keep exports to data you legitimately have in front of you, and keep the downstream use lawful.
Getting the member list
