How do I send a message to Telegram that includes a button that prompts the user to forward the message?

Question

Many Telegram bots (e.g., @youtube) have a button you can click on to forward messages sent by the bot. When the user clicks on this button, Telegram opens a contact list that lets the user choose who to forward the message to.

How can I send a button like this? The closest thing I can find is forwardMessage but that expects chat_id target ID as a required parameter. But I won't have this target ID until the user selects who they want to forward to.

Answer 1

If you want to share your content to specific chats, you have 2 options:

Option 1

If your bot has inline_mode enabled you can share content via a button that opens a inline_query in the chat selected. Basically, this is how @youtube bot works. To use this method you need to send an inline button with switch_inline_query as a field (documentation).

Example in Javascript:

bot.sendMessage(msg.chat.id, 'Share:', {
    reply_markup: {
        inline_keyboard: [[{
            text: 'Share with your friends',
            switch_inline_query: 'share'
        }]]
    }
})

This is the same example I use in my bot @livecoinbot, set a bitcoin address and use the share button.

Option 2

You can create a normal inline button or just simply send a link in a normal message, that will prompt the telegram client to share the content. Here is how you do it:

https://t.me/share/url?url=[url-to-send-here]&text=[text]

Example: Click here