Despendo on Telegram: alerts and bot commands
How to link your account to the Despendo Telegram bot, which commands it has, what alerts it sends and what you can try without an account.
Telegram is the quickest way to find out what is about to expire without opening the app. Despendo has a bot (@despendobot) that sends you an alert when something needs attention and answers a handful of commands. Two of them also work without an account, in case you just want to try it.
How to link it
- Open your Profile in the app and find the Telegram section.
- Tap Link Telegram and then Open Telegram and tap Start.
- In Telegram, the bot confirms your account is now linked to that chat.
The link uses a one-time code that expires after 15 minutes. Once it is used it is worthless, and if the time runs out you just generate another one. A chat can only be linked to one account: if it says the chat is already linked to another, send /unlink there and repeat the steps.
Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/summary | Your days of food and water, items with low stock and items about to expire |
/expiring | What expires in the next 14 days, with the days left |
/low | Items below their minimum |
/alerts | Turns the daily alert on or off (it also takes /alerts on and /alerts off) |
/unlink | Disconnects that chat from your account |
/help | Shows the list of commands |
If your Telegram is set to Spanish, the bot answers in Spanish and the commands have a Spanish version too (/resumen, /expiran, /bajos, /avisos, /desvincular, /ayuda).
The daily alert
Once a day the bot writes to you, but only when there is something to say: items about to expire or already expired, or running low. If everything is in order it sends nothing. If it bothers you, /alerts pauses it and turns it back on with the same command. It is the same kind of alert you get by email; you pick the channel in Profile > Alerts.
What you can try without an account
Two commands read nothing from any account, so they work even if you never linked the bot:
/kit72 4gives you the checklist for the 72-hour emergency kit for 4 people. The water quantity is already worked out: 1 gallon (3.8 liters) per person per day for three days, so 12 gallons for four./autonomy 4 120000tells you how many days of food 4 people get from 120,000 stored kcal. It is simple math (total calories divided by people times 2,000 a day). The app is finer: it uses each person's age, sex and activity and caps how much each food group can count, so the real number usually comes out lower. We explain it in how days of food are calculated.
If you leave out the number of people, the bot assumes one. To prevent abuse, it takes only a few requests per minute per chat.
What the bot sees and what it doesn't
- It only answers in private chats, not in groups.
- It only returns data from the account that chat is linked to. If you are part of a family group, you see the group's shared pantry.
- If your trial or plan has ended, the bot shows no data until you renew;
/unlinkkeeps working. - What Despendo keeps from your chat is its identifier and your alert preferences. It is spelled out in the privacy policy.
If you prefer email alerts, you can also turn them on in Profile > Alerts. And for what reaches Telegram to be useful, it helps to have your dates loaded properly; FIFO rotation relies on the same thing.
Get the free 72-hour kit checklist
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By subscribing you accept our privacy policy.Despendo is an independent app. This guide is general information: adapt it to your family, climate and medical needs, and always follow local authorities' instructions.
