A Telegram countdown bot that posts one message and counts it down

A countdown posted as a message is wrong the next morning. A countdown reposted daily is spam. Groups usually solve this by giving up and letting someone announce the number when they remember.

CountdownDaysBot takes the third option: it posts one message and then edits that message. The number in the chat is current, the chat is not filling up, and nobody gets a notification for a day passing.

Edit in place, not repost

The bot keeps the message id of the card it posted and rewrites that message whenever the displayed days-remaining number actually changes. It checks hourly, but an edit only happens when the visible number is different, so a countdown running for three months produces roughly ninety edits and zero new messages.

Because it is a single stable message, it is worth pinning. A pinned countdown stays correct indefinitely, which a pinned ordinary message does not.

Days remaining are computed against a group-level offset, set with /ctz. This is per group rather than per person, because a countdown is a single shared number and cannot be nine different numbers for nine members.

Several countdowns can run side by side, each its own message with its own id. /countdowns lists them with their target dates if the cards have scrolled out of view.

Starting a countdown

1. Add the bot to the group. No admin rights needed; it only edits messages it posted itself.
2. Set the group offset. /ctz +2. One setting for the chat, used to decide when a day rolls over.
3. Start it. /countdown 2026-12-25 Christmas. The card appears immediately with the current number.
4. Pin it. Optional, but this is the case where pinning genuinely pays, because the pinned message stays accurate.
5. Stop it when it is done. /stop <id>. The creator or any group admin can do this; the row is marked stopped rather than deleted so ids stay stable.

Command reference

Free and Pro

One-time 150 Stars, scoped to the group. Any member can pay it and every member of that chat gets the higher limits.

What it stores

• Per countdown: target date, label, the id of the member who created it, and the id of the message being edited.
• Stopped countdowns are marked rather than removed, which keeps the group's id numbering consistent over time.
• Nothing else in the chat is read or stored. The bot only ever touches the specific messages it posted.

Questions

How often does the number update?

The check runs hourly and an edit only happens when the displayed day count changes. There is no fixed clock time at which it refreshes.

Does every update send a notification?

No. Editing a message does not notify the chat, which is the reason the bot edits rather than reposts.

What happens on the last day?

On the free tier the card reads zero days. Pro countdowns switch to hourly precision for the final two days, so the message counts hours instead.

Who can stop one?

The member who created it, or any group admin, with /stop and the countdown's id.

Can I count down to a time, not a date?

The target is a date. Hour-level precision appears in the last two days on Pro; otherwise the unit is days.

Other Telegram bots in this set

• Telegram Secret Santa Bot The group sees the Join button. Nobody sees the pairings.
• Telegram Birthday Bot Self-service dates, an automatic greeting, and a list of what is coming.
• Telegram Standup Bot No meeting, no thread; three questions privately, one report publicly.

All of them are listed alongside the rest of Zovo's free online tools, and the browser-side half of the catalogue is under Chrome extensions.

Want the step-by-step walkthrough? Read Group countdown setup: the full guide on tg.zovo.one.