Load source history

Current main: available from source; not included in the 0.7.0 portable preview.

In Sources, review the enabled chats, start observation, then choose Load full history. The run fixes that list of sources and reads their available past messages into Chats and the signed observation journal. Media uses the existing attachment settings and durable download queue. This is separate from the per-chat signed JSON/HTML export.

For account-wide collection, select Whole account, start observation to load its source list, and review that list before starting history. The dialog-list limit still applies (1,000 by default, adjustable in Parameters). A successful run does not prove that every account dialog was listed. Chats discovered or enabled later need another run.

Pause, restart and partial results#

• Pause history stops reading. Continue history resumes from the last committed message in each source; restarting the app also leaves the run paused until resumed. Restart observation first. Resuming requires the same Telegram account.
• The message observation, attachment job and cursor commit in one transaction. A resumed run does not repeat its already committed observations. Live capture or a separate, explicitly started run may independently observe the same message.
• Each source fixes an upper message ID on its first read. Newer messages belong to live observation, not to that source's remaining historical pages.
• Inaccessible sources and sources disabled during acquisition remain visible as failed or skipped. Other sources continue; the overall result is incomplete.
• FloodWait delays respect the saved account backoff. Transport timeouts and low disk space pause the run with its cursor intact. Resume after resolving the cause.
• End this history run preserves saved observations. It does not remove them or cancel already queued attachment downloads. A new run reads enabled sources anew.

History completion describes history reads only. Attachments may remain pending, fail, or be excluded by the configured policy. Check media receipts in the journal and the attachment queue; only a completed receipt with preserved bytes constitutes a saved attachment. The history operation is an explicit snapshot request and is separate from switches that select categories of future live events.

Transfer and verify#

Save the signed progress report, then use Export evidence to download the journal and saved attachments. A later evidence export may include additional records; the report binds its counters to the journal prefix at the time it was created. Run the verifier from a trusted checkout of this version:

python tgwitness/verify.py tgwitness-history-report.json --evidence evidence.zip --fingerprint TRUSTED_FINGERPRINT

Keep the expected signing-key fingerprint independently. The verifier checks the report signature, the evidence archive, the report checkpoint, source plan, account and counts of saved/unavailable messages. Without --evidence, it checks only the signed report and its internal consistency. Progress phases, titles, cursors and attachment summaries are signed collector statements, not independently reconstructed by this report checker. The evidence verifier still checks the archived media bytes.

Neither signing nor finishing the available history proves Telegram origin, an atomic snapshot, or historical completeness. Messages can change while reading; deleted messages, unseen intermediate edits and Secret Chats are not recovered. An operator controlling the signing key can fabricate a journal before outside commitments exist. Use separately retained checkpoints or an independent witness for the documented tamper-detection properties.

The acquisition cursor is local workspace state. Restoring an evidence ZIP alone does not restore a pending acquisition job or Telegram session. Keep the workspace backup if continuation of the original job is required.