MediaGroup Middleware for grammY

A lightweight middleware for grammY Telegram bots that collects and groups media messages (like photos and videos) into a single media_group context property. This makes it easier to handle albums using a simple timeout-based strategy.

✨ Features

• 🖼️ Handles both photos and videos (albums)
• 🧩 Provides a mediaGroup filter for a clean handler with bot.filter()
• 🧩 Provides copyMediaGroup function to copy media groups
• ✅ Type-safe with TypeScript support

📦 Installation

npm install grammy-media-group

🚀 Usage

1. Setup (ESM / TypeScript)

import { Bot } from "grammy";
import { MediaGroupHandler, mediaGroup } from "grammy-media-group";

const bot = new Bot("<BOT_TOKEN>");
const mediaGroupHandler = new MediaGroupHandler(4000); // optional timeout in ms

bot.use(mediaGroupHandler.middleware());

1. Setup (CommonJS)

const { Bot } = require("grammy");
const { MediaGroupHandler, mediaGroup } = require("grammy-media-group");

const bot = new Bot("<BOT_TOKEN>");
const mediaGroupHandler = new MediaGroupHandler(4000); // optional timeout in ms

bot.use(mediaGroupHandler.middleware());

2. Handle Media Groups

This example shows how to use the mediaGroup filter to detect incoming media groups. When a media group is detected, the handler/middleware processes the grouped media files.

bot.filter(mediaGroup, async (ctx) => {
  const media = ctx.media_group;
  console.log(media.length); // outputs the media group (album) length
  // handle the media group...
});

📋 Copying a Media Group

You can use the copyMediaGroup utility function to copy a received media group, or copy it directly from the context into a format ready to be sent. This is useful if you want to resend an album with a custom caption or formatting.

// Import if you don't want to copy it directly from the context
import { copyMediaGroup } from "grammy-media-group";
// Or require if you are using CommonJS
const { copyMediaGroup } = require("grammy-media-group");

bot.filter(mediaGroup, async (ctx) => {
  // You can pass an optional options object to customize caption
  // and formatting
  const copiedMediaGroup = copyMediaGroup(ctx.media_group, {
    caption: "<b>Here's the album!</b>",
    parse_mode: "HTML"
  });

  // Or you can also copy the media group directly from the context
  // and pass the optional options object there as well
  const copiedMediaGroup = ctx.copyMediaGroup({
    caption: "<b>Here's the album!</b>",
    parse_mode: "HTML"
  });

  // Then you are ready to send the copied media group
  await ctx.api.sendMediaGroup(ctx.chat.id, copiedMediaGroup);
});

⚠️ Notes

• Note: This workaround may be unreliable or imprecise, as it relies on a timeout to determine when a media group is complete, which may lead to inaccuracies in cases of delayed or dropped messages.