MenuGram

A lightweight macOS menu bar app for quick Telegram messaging — built for fast back-and-forth with AI agents like OpenClaw, PicoClaw, and similar bots.

Lives in your menu bar, opens with a click, and gets out of your way.

Features

• Menu bar app — no dock icon, always one click away
• Text and voice message support (record & send voice notes)
• Voice note playback with waveform visualization
• Live typing/recording indicators
• Auto-connects to your configured bot on launch

Prerequisites

• macOS 15.0+
• Xcode 26+
• A Telegram account
• A Telegram API ID & Hash (free, from my.telegram.org)
• A Telegram bot you want to chat with

Setup

1. Get Telegram API Credentials

1. Go to my.telegram.org and log in
2. Click API development tools
3. Create a new application (any name/platform)
4. Note your api_id and api_hash

2. Configure Environment Variables in Xcode Scheme

1. Open MenuGram.xcodeproj in Xcode
2. Go to Product > Scheme > Edit Scheme… (or Cmd+<)
3. Select Run in the sidebar, then the Arguments tab
4. Under Environment Variables, add the following:

Variable	Value	Description
TELEGRAM_API_ID	12345678	Your API ID from step 1
TELEGRAM_API_HASH	your_api_hash_here	Your API hash from step 1
BOT_NAME	YourBotName	Display name of the bot/contact to auto-open on launch

BOT_NAME is the display name of the Telegram bot/contact you want MenuGram to auto-open on launch. For example, if your bot is called "PicoClaw", set BOT_NAME=PicoClaw.

3. Build & Run

1. Wait for Swift Package Manager to resolve dependencies (TDLibKit)
2. In Signing & Capabilities, enable Audio Input under App Sandbox
3. Build and run (Cmd+R)
4. Sign in with your phone number when prompted

How It Works

MenuGram uses TDLib (via TDLibKit) as the Telegram client library. It authenticates as a full Telegram user (not a bot), so you can send and receive messages just like the official app.

On launch, it searches your chat list for the bot name specified in BOT_NAME and opens that conversation automatically. You can send text or voice messages, and see real-time typing indicators from the other side.

Project Structure

MenuGram/
├── Constants.swift              # App config, reads env vars from scheme
├── Models/
│   ├── ChatItem.swift           # Chat list model
│   └── MessageItem.swift        # Message model
├── Services/
│   ├── TelegramService.swift    # TDLib client wrapper
│   └── OGGOpusConverter.swift   # OGG Opus to WAV conversion
└── Views/
    ├── RootView.swift           # Top-level navigation
    ├── Auth/                    # Login flow (phone, code, password)
    └── Chat/
        ├── ChatDetailView.swift     # Message list + header
        ├── MessageBubbleView.swift  # Individual message bubbles
        ├── MessageInputView.swift   # Text + voice input
        └── VoiceNoteView.swift      # Voice message playback

License

MIT