Analyze Images & Extract Text with GPT-4o Vision and Telegram

Who’s it for

Teams and makers who want a plug-and-play vision bot: users send a photo in Telegram, the bot returns a concise description plus OCR text. No custom servers required—just n8n, a Telegram bot, and an AIMLAPI key.

What it does / How it works

The workflow listens for new Telegram messages, fetches the highest-resolution photo, converts it to base64, normalizes the MIME type, and calls AIMLAPI (GPT-4o Vision) via the HTTP Request node using the OpenAI-compatible messages format with an image_url data URI. The model returns a short caption and extracted text. The answer is sent back to the same Telegram chat.

Requirements

n8n instance (self-hosted or cloud) Telegram bot token (from @BotFather) AIMLAPI account and API key (OpenAI-compatible endpoint)

How to set up

Create a Telegram bot with @BotFather and copy the token. In n8n, add Telegram credentials (no hardcoded tokens in nodes). Add AIMLAPI credentials with your API key (base URL: https://api.aimlapi.com/v1). Import the workflow JSON and connect credentials in the nodes. Execute the trigger and send a photo to your bot to test.

How to customize the workflow

Modify the vision prompt (e.g., add brand, language, or formatting rules). Switch models within AIMLAPI (any vision-capable model using the same messages schema). Add an IF branch for text-only messages (reply with guidance). Log usage to Google Sheets or a database (user id, file id, response). Add rate limits, user allowlists, or Markdown formatting in Telegram responses. Increase timeouts/retries in the HTTP Request node for long-running images.