Turn a Shared Telegram Folder into a Research Spreadsheet

A shared Telegram folder can be a useful starting point for research: someone—perhaps you—has already collected a set of channels or groups around a topic.

But a collection inside Telegram is not quite the same as a working research list. You may want to record why each source matters, assign it to a colleague, or track which channels you have reviewed.

For that, a spreadsheet can be more practical.

This guide walks through turning a shared Telegram folder into a list of links, then building a simple research workflow around it.

What we’re building

The goal is a spreadsheet with one source per row and a few columns you maintain yourself:

The export provides the initial list of channel and group names and links. You then add topics, review statuses, and research notes yourself.

What you’ll need

• A shared Telegram folder invitation link.
• Access to FolderLinks.
• A spreadsheet application, such as Excel or Google Sheets.

The input is the folder’s invitation link, not an individual channel link. A shared folder link has this general form:

https://t.me/addlist/...

For an initial test, use a folder you created yourself or have permission to work with.

Step 1: Export the links from the folder

Open FolderLinks and submit the shared folder invitation link.

In the export dialog, choose a format:

• Excel for an XLSX workbook.
• CSV if you want a plain-text table to import into a spreadsheet or process later.

For this example, select Excel and leave “Names and links only” checked. Leave “Link format: web preview” unchecked to use standard channel and group links.

Click “Send to chat” to receive the exported file in your Telegram chat.

For this walkthrough, either Excel or CSV works. The goal is to get the source names and links into a spreadsheet.

If you are working with several folders, FolderLinks also supports multi-folder exports. I would start with one folder first so you can inspect the output before expanding the list.

Step 2: Open the export and check the source list

Open the XLSX file in your spreadsheet application, or import the CSV.

Before adding research notes, check the exported links against the folder you intended to process:

• Is this the right collection?
• Which links are relevant to your project?
• Are any sources repeated across your existing research lists?
• Are there entries you need to inspect manually?

Keep a copy of the original export. That gives you an untouched starting point if you later sort, filter, or remove rows.

If your export includes additional columns, keep whichever ones are useful. For this workflow, you only need the source names and URLs.

Step 3: Add a small research layer

Next to the exported data, add these columns:

• Topic
• Review status
• Research notes

Keep the first version simple.

For Topic, use categories that match the questions you are researching. For example:

• Research papers
• Developer tools
• Industry news
• Community discussions

For Review status, use a short, consistent set of values:

• Not reviewed
• Reviewed
• Keep
• Exclude

For Research notes, record the reason behind your decision:

Useful release announcements; check original project links.

That is more informative than a vague note such as “good channel.”

Step 4: Review sources

The spreadsheet is a review queue, not a finished source assessment.

Open each relevant source and consider:

• What does it actually publish?
• Does it link to original material?
• Is the content relevant to your research question?
• Would you cite it directly, or use it to discover primary sources?
• Is it worth keeping in your regular reading workflow?

To record an individual finding, you can add columns such as:

• Post URL
• Finding
• Verification notes

If you collect multiple findings from the same source, use a separate “Findings” sheet with one row per finding.

FolderLinks handles the initial link extraction. Reading posts, evaluating claims, and recording evidence remain separate research tasks.

What this workflow does—and doesn’t do

This workflow turns a shared folder into a manageable starting list.

It does not export message history, automatically classify channels, or verify the claims they publish.

The useful part is what happens after the export

The main benefit is not simply moving links into Excel.

It is giving each source a place in a repeatable process: review it, categorize it, record why it matters, and decide whether to keep following it.

Start with one folder and three extra columns. Expand the spreadsheet when your research needs more structure.