Unsplash Has a Free API — Get Professional Photos for Any Project (50 Requests/Hour)

#api #webdev #tutorial #beginners

Stop Using Lorem Picsum

Unsplash has 4M+ high-resolution photos from professional photographers, all free for commercial use. Their API gives you programmatic access with 50 requests per hour on the free tier.

Setup

import requests

ACCESS_KEY = "your_unsplash_access_key"
BASE = "https://api.unsplash.com"
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Client-ID {ACCESS_KEY}"}

Search Photos

def search_photos(query, count=5):
    r = requests.get(f"{BASE}/search/photos", headers=HEADERS,
                     params={"query": query, "per_page": count})
    return [{"id": p["id"],
             "url": p["urls"]["regular"],
             "thumb": p["urls"]["thumb"],
             "author": p["user"]["name"],
             "description": p.get("alt_description", "")}
            for p in r.json()["results"]]

photos = search_photos("mountain landscape")
for p in photos:
    print(f"{p[author]}: {p[description]}")
    print(f"  URL: {p[url]}")

Get Random Photo

def random_photo(query=None):
    params = {}
    if query:
        params["query"] = query
    r = requests.get(f"{BASE}/photos/random", headers=HEADERS, params=params)
    p = r.json()
    return {"url": p["urls"]["regular"], "author": p["user"]["name"]}

photo = random_photo("coding")
print(f"Photo by {photo[author]}: {photo[url]}")

Download and Save

def download_photo(photo_id, filename):
    # First trigger download (required by Unsplash guidelines)
    r = requests.get(f"{BASE}/photos/{photo_id}/download", headers=HEADERS)
    download_url = r.json()["url"]

    # Then download the actual image
    img = requests.get(download_url)
    with open(filename, "wb") as f:
        f.write(img.content)
    print(f"Saved to {filename}")

Real Use Cases

Blog cover images — auto-select relevant photos for articles
Placeholder content — fill mockups with real professional photos
Social media — generate post images programmatically
Desktop wallpaper — daily wallpaper changer script
Email templates — dynamic header images based on topic

Unsplash vs Alternatives

Service	Free Photos	API?	Commercial Use?
Unsplash	4M+	Yes (50/hr)	Yes
Pexels	3M+	Yes (200/hr)	Yes
Pixabay	2.7M+	Yes (100/hr)	Yes
Lorem Picsum	Random only	Yes	Yes

Important: Attribution

Unsplash license does not require attribution, but it is appreciated. Their API guidelines require triggering the download endpoint when a user downloads a photo.