💡 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 (13)

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? 🤔

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.

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.