How to Auto Forward Telegram Messages to WhatsApp
All three can do something along those lines, but they go about it in quite different ways. More importantly, whether they’ll actually work for you depends on what you mean by “auto forward”.
If all you want is to get a message from A to B, there are plenty of options.
If you want to properly connect groups, channels and accounts together, things get a little more complicated.
WHAMetrics
WHAMetrics is probably the closest of the three to a dedicated Telegram and WhatsApp forwarding service.
Its Bridge product is designed to mirror content between Telegram and WhatsApp groups or channels, including forwarding in both directions. It also offers things like filtering and formatting between the two platforms.
For something simple, like:
Telegram Channel → WhatsApp Group
that may well be all you need.
Where things become more interesting is when the setup isn’t quite so simple.
Maybe you want one Telegram channel to feed several WhatsApp groups. Maybe you want several Telegram channels feeding into one destination. Maybe you have different Telegram accounts because the channels you follow aren’t all available from the same account.
At that point you’re not really talking about simple message forwarding anymore.
You’re talking about routing messages between different places.
IFTTT
IFTTT comes up a lot because, well, connecting one thing to another is basically what IFTTT does.
There’s even an IFTTT Applet specifically for forwarding Telegram group messages to WhatsApp.
The problem is that it doesn’t quite work in the way most people probably imagine when they search for “Telegram WhatsApp auto forward”.
The Telegram side relies on an IFTTT command being triggered in the group, while WhatsApp is handled through another service. So it’s useful if you want a specific action to cause a message to be sent somewhere else.
What it isn’t really doing is quietly listening to a Telegram channel and passing new messages across automatically.
That becomes particularly important if you don’t own the Telegram channel.
If you’re simply a member of a channel and want messages from it sent somewhere you manage, you obviously can’t ask everyone posting there to start using a special IFTTT command.
IFTTT is great at:
When this happens, do that.
It just wasn’t designed specifically as a bridge between messaging platforms.
Pabbly Connect
Pabbly takes a more traditional workflow approach.
You choose a trigger, decide what should happen next, connect the relevant services and build an automation around it.
That makes Pabbly pretty powerful, particularly if Telegram or WhatsApp is only one small part of a much bigger workflow.
For Telegram to WhatsApp though, there are a few extra steps.
Pabbly’s own setup uses a Telegram bot. You create the bot through BotFather, get its token and then add that bot to the Telegram group you want to monitor. On the WhatsApp side, you’ll also need a WhatsApp API service to actually send the messages.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with that if you own the group.
But what if you don’t?
That was one of the problems I ran into myself.
I wanted messages from a Telegram channel I was already a member of to be forwarded into a WhatsApp group I managed.
I didn’t own the Telegram channel, so adding my own bot as an administrator simply wasn’t an option.
That problem eventually turned into BridgeWire.
Why I Built BridgeWire Differently
BridgeWire doesn’t rely on you creating a Telegram bot for every group or channel you want to use.
Instead, you connect your actual messaging account.
With Telegram, you sign in using your phone number, enter the verification code Telegram sends you and complete 2FA if you have it enabled.
BridgeWire can then see the groups and channels that account already has access to.
That changes things quite a bit.
If you’re already a member of a Telegram channel, you don’t need to ask the owner to install a bot.
You don’t need to make anything an administrator.
You don’t need to change anything in the source channel at all.
If the connected Telegram account can receive those messages, that channel can be used as a source in BridgeWire.
WhatsApp Works the Same Way You’d Expect
On the WhatsApp side, you link your account to BridgeWire as a linked device.
Once it’s connected, BridgeWire can see the WhatsApp groups available to that account and they can be selected as destinations for your bridges.
From there, the basic idea is pretty simple:
Choose where messages are coming from.
Choose where you want them to go.
Create the bridge.
Once it’s active, BridgeWire handles the forwarding automatically.
One Source Can Go to More Than One Place
This is one of the areas where I wanted BridgeWire to be a bit more flexible than a normal automation workflow.
A bridge doesn’t have to mean one source and one destination.
You could have:
Telegram Channel A → WhatsApp Group A + WhatsApp Group B
Or:
Telegram Channel A + Telegram Channel B → WhatsApp Group A
Or even:
Multiple Telegram sources → Multiple WhatsApp destinations
You create the route you actually need rather than having to build a separate automation for every individual connection.
That becomes much more useful once you’re running more than a couple of groups.
Multiple Telegram Accounts
BridgeWire also supports more than one Telegram account.
That might sound unnecessary at first, but it makes sense once you start using it properly.
One Telegram account may have access to certain channels while another has access to completely different ones.
Rather than forcing everything through a single account, each account can be connected separately and its groups and channels become available when you build a bridge.
So BridgeWire isn’t limited by what one Telegram account happens to be a member of.
Everything Lives in One Dashboard
Another thing I wanted to avoid was ending up with a pile of automations running in different places and having no easy way to remember what was connected to what.
BridgeWire keeps connections and bridges separate.
Your connections are the actual Telegram and WhatsApp accounts.
Your bridges decide how messages move between them.
From the dashboard you can see your connected accounts, create new bridges, see what sources and destinations they contain and switch individual bridges on or off.
There’s also message activity, so you can actually see whether messages are moving rather than just assuming your automation is still running somewhere in the background.
So Which One Should You Use?
There isn’t really one answer that suits everyone.
If you just need to mirror a Telegram channel into a WhatsApp group, WHAMetrics is probably the first alternative I’d look at.
If you want something to happen when a specific Telegram action takes place, IFTTT might be enough.
If Telegram and WhatsApp are part of a much bigger business automation involving loads of other apps and services, Pabbly Connect makes a lot of sense.
BridgeWire is aimed at a slightly different problem.
It’s for when the groups and channels themselves are what you want to connect.
You connect the messaging accounts you already use, pick the groups or channels you want as sources, choose where their messages should go and let BridgeWire handle the routing.
No Telegram bot needs to be added to the source channel.
No separate automation for every single source and destination combination.
And you’re not restricted to channels you personally own.
At the moment, BridgeWire is focused on Telegram and WhatsApp, because that’s where the original problem started.
But the underlying idea is much bigger than simply forwarding Telegram messages to WhatsApp.
It’s about being able to connect messaging platforms together and decide where your messages go.
That’s what BridgeWire is being built for.
Bridgewire connects Telegram and WhatsApp automatically — messages, photos, and video, forwarded the moment they're posted.
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