💡 Quick tip: Fetch JSON data from a public Instagram profile without Graph API

I hate Instagram's Graph API for its complex configuration...

Thanks to a Google search, I discovered a magic query string to use with the official Instagram website:

https://www.instagram.com/{public_profile_name}/?__a=1

Using the query string __a=1 allows you to fetch the JSON content of any public Instagram profile.

Below is one of the solutions with JavaScript:

async function getInstagramPictures (profileName) {
  const baseUrl = "https://www.instagram.com";
  const profileUrl = `${baseUrl}/${profileName}`;
  const jsonDataUrl = `${profileUrl}/?__a=1`;

  const response = await fetch(jsonDataUrl);
  const jsonData = await response.json();
  const pictures = jsonData.graphql.user.edge_owner_to_timeline_media.edges;

  if (response.ok) {
    return pictures;
  } else {
    throw new Error(pictures);
  }
}

getInstagramPictures("nasa")
  .then(pictures => console.log("Pictures:", pictures))
  .catch(error => console.error("Error:", error));

By looping pictures, you can display each image or its thumbnails:

picture.node.display_url
picture.node.thumbnail_resources
- [0].src = 150x150
- [1].src = 240x240
- [2].src = 320x320
- [3].src = 480x480
- [4].src = 640x640

Sources:

Top comments (14)

Phil Smith • Oct 29

The CORS and intermittent availability issues are frustrating - Instagram seems to throttle or block these unofficial endpoints unpredictably, especially from server IPs. If you're just fetching your own posts, you can use the official Instagram Basic Display API, though it's a bit fiddly due to refresh tokens expiring every 60 days and requiring manual reauthorization.
Here's a basic example once you have your access token:

async function getInstagramPosts(accessToken) {
  const fields = 'id,caption,media_type,media_url,permalink,thumbnail_url,timestamp';
  const url = `https://graph.instagram.com/me/media?fields=${fields}&access_token=${accessToken}`;

  const response = await fetch(url);
  const data = await response.json();

  if (response.ok) {
    return data.data;
  } else {
    throw new Error(data.error.message);
  }
}

getInstagramPosts(YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN)
  .then(posts => console.log("Posts:", posts))
  .catch(error => console.error("Error:", error));

The tricky part is getting that initial token (requires Facebook App setup) and then refreshing it before it expires every 60 days. I actually built FeedFramer to handle this token refresh dance automatically because I got tired of my Instagram embeds breaking. But if you're comfortable managing the token lifecycle yourself, the official API is much more reliable than the ?__a=1 trick.

Ardhitya Wiedha Irawan • Mar 2 '21

It's not working. Inst*gr*m has been blocked by CORS policy: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource.

Any solution ?

Benjamin Grand • Mar 29 '21

Try on the request header:
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *

developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/W...

Ardhitya Wiedha Irawan • Mar 29 '21

It is working? 🤔

Benjamin Grand • Jun 9 '20

❌ Unfortunately, this quick tip no longer works today...

If someone knows a good tutorial for using the Graph API, I am interested...

Ian Duffy • Sep 2 '20

It does seem to be useable again strange.

subashcs • Jan 9 '21

This worked perfectly on a public Instagram profile. Applause !!

Ronak Patel • Sep 4 '20

From my experience, this only works if you have recently logged into an Instagram account with the same IP address. But mostly does not work from a server/proxy.

Vlad • Dec 17 '21

Nice article! I recently wrote an example of Instagram posts scraper with Scrapy using the same approach with ?__a=1 URLs webscraping.ai/blog/instagram-scra...

Griffin Johnston • Mar 15 '22 • Edited

Feel free to yell at me if this isn't allowed here, but this issue is exactly why I built behold.so - it let's you get user or hashtag posts as JSON with just a couple clicks. There are paid tiers, but the basic level is free. Much better than the madness of Meta's API red tape.