Storage Engines#

Every time you login to Telegram, some personal piece of data are created and held by both parties (the client, Pyrogram and the server, Telegram). This session data is uniquely bound to your own account, indefinitely (until you logout or decide to manually terminate it) and is used to authorize a client to execute API calls on behalf of your identity.

Persisting Sessions#

In order to make a client reconnect successfully between restarts, that is, without having to start a new authorization process from scratch each time, Pyrogram needs to store the generated session data somewhere.

Different Storage Engines#

Pyrogram offers two different types of storage engines: a File Storage and a Memory Storage. These engines are well integrated in the framework and require a minimal effort to set up. Here’s how they work:

File Storage#

This is the most common storage engine. It is implemented by using SQLite, which will store the session details. The database will be saved to disk as a single portable file and is designed to efficiently store and retrieve data whenever they are needed.

To use this type of engine, simply pass any name of your choice to the name parameter of the Client constructor, as usual:

from pyrogram import Client

async with Client("my_account") as app:
    print(await app.get_me())

Once you successfully log in (either with a user or a bot identity), a session file will be created and saved to disk as my_account.session. Any subsequent client restart will make Pyrogram search for a file named that way and the session database will be automatically loaded.

Memory Storage#

In case you don’t want to have any session file saved to disk, you can use an in-memory storage by passing True to the in_memory parameter of the Client constructor:

from pyrogram import Client

async with Client("my_account", in_memory=True) as app:
    print(await app.get_me())

This storage engine is still backed by SQLite, but the database exists purely in memory. This means that, once you stop a client, the entire database is discarded and the session details used for logging in again will be lost forever.

Session Strings#

In case you want to use an in-memory storage, but also want to keep access to the session you created, call export_session_string() anytime before stopping the client…

from pyrogram import Client

async with Client("my_account", in_memory=True) as app:
    print(await app.export_session_string())

…and save the resulting string. You can use this string by passing it as Client argument the next time you want to login using the same session; the storage used will still be in-memory:

from pyrogram import Client

session_string = "...ZnUIFD8jsjXTb8g_vpxx48k1zkov9sapD-tzjz-S4WZv70M..."

async with Client("my_account", session_string=session_string) as app:
    print(await app.get_me())

Session strings are useful when you want to run authorized Pyrogram clients on platforms where their ephemeral filesystems makes it harder for a file-based storage engine to properly work as intended.

Custom Storages#

If you want to use a custom storage engine, you can do so by implementing the Storage class. This class is an base class that defines the interface that all storage engines must implement.

This class is a class that cannot be instantiated, but can be used to define a common interface for its subclasses. In this case, the Storage class defines the interface that all storage engines must implement.

Custom Storage can be defined in Client by passing storage_engine parameter with a Storage subclass.

Example of Telethon Storage#

If you want to use sessions from telethon in pyrogram (originally incompatible), you can use this storage.

This storage is almost completely identical and once used in pyrogram can be reused in telethon without breaking session integrity.

An example that you can run and test how it works (this example using test server): *click*

class pyrogram.storage.storage.Storage(name: str)

Abstract class for storage engines.

Parameters:: name (str) – The name of the session.

abstract async api_id(value: int = <class 'object'>)

Get or set the API ID of the current session.

Parameters:: value (int, optional) – The API ID to set.

abstract async auth_key(value: bytes = <class 'object'>)

Get or set the authorization key of the current session.

Parameters:: value (bytes, optional) – The authorization key to set.

abstract async close(): Closes the storage engine.

abstract async date(value: int = <class 'object'>)

Get or set the date of the current session.

Parameters:: value (int, optional) – The date to set.

abstract async dc_id(value: int = <class 'object'>)

Get or set the DC ID of the current session.

Parameters:: value (int, optional) – The DC ID to set.

abstract async delete(): Deletes the storage.

async export_session_string()

Exports the session string for the current session.

Returns:: str – The session string for the current session.

abstract async get_peer_by_id(peer_id: int)

Retrieve a peer by its ID.

Parameters:: peer_id (int) – The ID of the peer to retrieve.

abstract async get_peer_by_phone_number(phone_number: str)

Retrieve a peer by its phone number.

Parameters:: phone_number (str) – The phone number of the peer to retrieve.

abstract async get_peer_by_username(username: str)

Retrieve a peer by its username.

Parameters:: username (str) – The username of the peer to retrieve.

abstract async is_bot(value: bool = <class 'object'>)

Get or set the bot flag of the current session.

Parameters:: value (bool, optional) – The bot flag to set.

abstract async open(): Opens the storage engine.

abstract async save(): Saves the current state of the storage engine.

abstract async test_mode(value: bool = <class 'object'>)

Get or set the test mode of the current session.

Parameters:: value (bool, optional) – The test mode to set.

abstract async update_peers(peers: List[Tuple[int, int, str, List[str], str]])

Update the peers table with the provided information.

Parameters:: peers (List[Tuple[int, int, str, List[str], str]]) – A list of tuples containing the information of the peers to be updated. Each tuple must contain the following information: - int: The peer id. - int: The peer access hash. - str: The peer type (user, chat or channel). - List of str: The peer username (if any). - str: The peer phone number (if any).

abstract async update_state(update_state: ~typing.Tuple[int, int, int, int, int] = <class 'object'>)

Get or set the update state of the current session.

Parameters:: update_state (Tuple[int, int, int, int, int]) – A tuple containing the update state to set. Tuple must contain the following information: - int: The id of the entity. - int: The pts. - int: The qts. - int: The date. - int: The seq.

abstract async user_id(value: int = <class 'object'>)

Get or set the user ID of the current session.

Parameters:: value (int, optional) – The user ID to set.