How to spot deleted posts in a Telegram channel
Telegram numbers every post in a channel in order: 1, 2, 3. When a post is deleted its number is never reused, so a deleted post leaves a gap. That makes deletions countable, even years later.
How to see it yourself
- Open the channel in a browser at t.me/s/ followed by its username. This shows the recent posts without joining.
- Each post has a link ending in its number, for example t.me/channelname/1450. In the Telegram app, choose "Copy post link" on any post to see the same number.
- Compare neighbours. If one post is 1450 and the next is 1462, eleven posts are gone.
- Look at where the gaps fall. Gaps right after a signal, followed by a "TP hit" post, are the pattern to worry about: a losing signal removed and the winners kept.
What a gap does not prove
A few numbers are used by service messages, such as "message pinned" or a changed channel photo, which never appear as posts. Channels also delete adverts, duplicates and mistakes. So a few percent missing is normal. A third of a channel's history missing is not, and it means any win rate the channel quotes is counted over the posts it chose to keep.
What we do about it
Every public channel's page shows the share of its message history that is missing, free. Since October 2026 we also record 46 public channels live: each post is saved as it appears and checked again over the following 90 days, so a post deleted later is kept. More channels are added over time.
The channels missing the most posts are listed on their own page.