User Manual

Everything you need to load a Telegram export, browse chats, and view media in TeleVault.

1. What you need

• A modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, or Brave).
• A Telegram Desktop export. To export: open Telegram Desktop → Settings → Advanced → Export Telegram data.
• Choose JSON, HTML, or both. All three work in TeleVault.

2. Opening the app

On the landing page, click Enter TeleVault. There are two load buttons on the left:

• Load JSON — pick a single result.json. Chat metadata comes through, but media won’t play because there is no folder access.
• Load Folder — pick the entire export folder. This includes media and enables inline images, videos, GIFs, and audio.

3. Browsing chats

• Chats appear in the left sidebar with avatars and last-message previews.
• Click any chat to open it on the right.
• Use the search bar to filter chats by name.
• On narrow screens, the sidebar hides after opening a chat — use the ← back button to return.

4. Inside a chat

• Search in chat — the 🔎 button filters messages by text.
• Media gallery — the 🖼 button opens a grid of every photo, video, GIF and audio file in the current chat.
• Chat info — the ℹ button opens a side panel with chat type, message count, media count, and participants.

5. Viewing media

Images and stickers

Click any image to open it in the fullscreen viewer. Use ← and → to move through all images in the chat, Esc to close, and ⬇ to download.

Videos and GIFs

Videos play inline with native controls. GIFs autoplay muted and loop. Click a GIF to open it in the viewer with a sound toggle.

Audio and voice messages

Voice messages and audio files appear as rounded cards with a play button, animated waveform, and live timer.

6. Your profile

The card at the bottom of the sidebar shows your name, avatar initial, and an “online” indicator after loading JSON. Click it to open your profile panel with phone number, username, user ID, and stats across all loaded chats.

If you loaded an HTML-only export, TeleVault can’t display your phone or user ID because Telegram’s HTML exports do not include personal information. The name is inferred from your outgoing messages when possible.

7. Themes

Click the ☰ menu, then choose a theme under Theme:

• Dark — deep slate with cyan accent (default).
• Light — bright neutral with soft blue accent.
• Ocean — deep navy with teal accent.
• Forest — dark mossy green with emerald accent.

Your choice is saved locally and restored next time you open the app.

8. Keyboard shortcuts

• Esc — close the active panel, gallery, or viewer.
• ← / → — previous / next media in the viewer.

9. Troubleshooting

Nothing happens after loading JSON

The status bar will say why. If it says “Parsed but 0 chats”, your Telegram version may use a shape not yet supported. Open DevTools → Console for a structural dump.

Media shows as “not found”

You loaded only the JSON file without the folder. Use Load Folder and pick the folder that contains result.json and the media subfolders together.

Very large exports are slow on first open

Each chat is rendered lazily and cached in memory. The first click on a very large chat may take a few seconds; subsequent clicks are instant.