[instagram-api] How to get an Instagram Access Token

I'm really struggling in how I'm meant to get my access token for Instagram,

I've registered a new client and then I used this URL

https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENT-ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT-URI&response_type=code

to fill in the clients ID and redirect Url.

I then was redirected to a page where it displayed a code in the Url but from there I don't have a clue where id then get my access token.

By using https://www.hurl.it/ i was able to see this: { "code": 400, "error_type": "OAuthException", "error_message": "Matching code was not found or was already used." }

so: you have to get new code for every request.

Link to oficial API documentation is http://instagram.com/developer/authentication/

Longstory short - two steps:

Get CODE

Open https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENT-ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT-URI&response_type=code with information from http://instagram.com/developer/clients/manage/

Get access token

curl \-F 'client_id=CLIENT-ID' \
    -F 'client_secret=CLIENT-SECRET' \
    -F 'grant_type=authorization_code' \
    -F 'redirect_uri=YOUR-REDIRECT-URI' \
    -F 'code=CODE' \
    https://api.instagram.com/oauth/access_token

I got the same problem before, but I change the url into this
https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENT-ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT-URI&response_type=token

This worked just fine for me:

http://jelled.com/instagram/access-token

FYI, I used it in combination with the jQuery Instagram plugin which you'll find here; http://potomak.github.com/jquery-instagram

Try this:

http://dmolsen.com/2013/04/05/generating-access-tokens-for-instagram/

after getting the code you can do something like:

curl -F 'client_id=[your_client_id]' -F 'client_secret=[your_secret_key]' -F 'grant_type=authorization_code' -F 'redirect_uri=[redirect_url]' -F 'code=[code]' https://api.instagram.com/oauth/access_token

The access token is returned as a URI fragment after you authorize the application to use your Instagram data. It should look something like the following:

Almost all of the replies that people have posted so far only cover how to handle access tokens on the front end, following Instagram's client-side "implicit authentication" procedure. This method is less secure and unrecommended according to Instagram's API docs.

Assuming you are using a server, the Instagram docs sort of fail in providing a clear answer about exchanging a code for a token, as they only give an example of a cURL request. Essentially you have to make a POST request to their server with the provided code and all of your app's information, and they will return a user object including user information and the token.

I don't know what language you are writing in, but I solved this in Node.js with the request npm module which you can find here.

I parsed through the url and used this information to send the post request

var code = req.url.split('code=')[1];

request.post(
  { form: { client_id: configAuth.instagramAuth.clientID,
            client_secret: configAuth.instagramAuth.clientSecret,
            grant_type: 'authorization_code',
            redirect_uri: configAuth.instagramAuth.callbackURL,
            code: code
          },
    url: 'https://api.instagram.com/oauth/access_token'
  },
  function (err, response, body) {
    if (err) {
      console.log("error in Post", err)
    }else{
      console.log(JSON.parse(body))
    }
  }
);

Of course replace the configAuth stuff with your own information. You probably aren't using Node.js, but hopefully this solution will help you translate your own solution into whatever language you are using it in.

If you don't want to build your server side, like only developing on a client side (web app or a mobile app) , you could choose an Implicit Authentication .

As the document saying , first make a https request with

https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENT-ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT-URI&response_type=token

Fill in your CLIENT-ID and REDIRECT-URL you designated.

Then that's going to the log in page , but the most important thing is how to get the access token after the user correctly logging in.

After the user click the log in button with both correct account and password, the web page will redirect to the url you designated followed by a new access token.

http://your-redirect-uri#access_token=ACCESS-TOKEN

I'm not familiar with javascript , but in Android studio , that's an easy way to add a listener which listen to the event the web page override the url to the new url (redirect event) , then it will pass the redirect url string to you , so you can easily split it to get the access-token like:

String access_token = url.split("=")[1];

Means to break the url into the string array in each "=" character , then the access token obviously exists at [1].

If you're looking for instructions, check out this article post. And if you're using C# ASP.NET, have a look at this repo.

100% working this code

<a id="button" class="instagram-token-button" href="https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URL&response_type=code">Click here to get your Instagram Access Token and User ID</a>
<?PHP
  if (isset($_GET['code'])) {

        $code = $_GET['code'];

        $client_id='< YOUR CLIENT ID >';
        $redirect_uri='< YOUR REDIRECT URL >';
        $client_secret='< YOUR CLIENT SECRET >';
        $url='https://api.instagram.com/oauth/access_token';

        $request_fields = array(
            'client_id' => $client_id,
            'client_secret' => $client_secret,
            'grant_type' => 'authorization_code',
            'redirect_uri' => $redirect_uri,
            'code' => $code
        );

        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
        $request_fields = http_build_query($request_fields);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $request_fields);
        $results = curl_exec($ch); 
        $results = json_decode($results,true);
        $access_token = $results['access_token'];

        echo $access_token;

        exit();
    }

?>

go to manage clinet page in :

http://www.instagram.com/developer/

set a redirect url

then :

use this code to get access token :

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<title>tst</title>
<script src="../jq.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
       $.ajax({
            type: 'GET',
            url: 'https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENT-??ID&redirect_uri=REDI?RECT-URI&response_ty?pe=code'
            dataType: 'jsonp'}).done(function(response){
                var access = window.location.hash.substring(14);
                //you have access token in access var   
            });
</script>
</head>
<body>  
</body>
</html>

The Instagram API is meant for not only you, but for any Instagram user to potentially authenticate with your app. I followed the instructions on the Instagram Dev website. Using the first (Explicit) method, I was able to do this quite easily on the server.

Step 1) Add a link or button to your webpage which a user could click to initiate the authentication process:

<a href="https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&redirect_uri=YOUR_REDIRECT_URI&response_type=code">Get Started</a>

YOUR_CLIENT_ID and YOUR_REDIRECT_URI will be given to you after you successfully register your app in the Instagram backend, along with YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET used below.

Step 2) At the URI that you defined for your app, which is the same as YOUR_REDIRECT_URI, you need to accept the response from the Instagram server. The Instagram server will feed you back a code variable in the request. Then you need to use this code and other information about your app to make another request directly from your server to obtain the access_token. I did this in python using Django framework, as follows:

direct django to the response function in urls.py:

from django.conf.urls import url

from . import views

app_name = 'main'
urlpatterns = [
        url(r'^$', views.index, name='index'),
        url(r'^response/', views.response, name='response'),
]

Here is the response function, handling the request, views.py:

from django.shortcuts import render
import urllib
import urllib2
import json

def response(request):
    if 'code' in request.GET:
        url = 'https://api.instagram.com/oauth/access_token'
        values = {
            'client_id':'YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
            'client_secret':'YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET',
            'redirect_uri':'YOUR_REDIRECT_URI',
            'code':request.GET.get('code'),
            'grant_type':'authorization_code'
        }
        data = urllib.urlencode(values)
        req = urllib2.Request(url, data)
        response = urllib2.urlopen(req)
        response_string = response.read()
        insta_data = json.loads(response_string)
        if 'access_token' in insta_data and 'user' in insta_data:
            #authentication success
            return render(request, 'main/response.html')
        else:
            #authentication failure after step 2
            return render(request, 'main/auth_error.html')
    elif 'error' in req.GET:
        #authentication failure after step 1
        return render(request, 'main/auth_error.html')

This is just one way, but the process should be almost identical in PHP or any other server-side language.

The easy way that works in 2019

Disable implicit oauth under the security auth and THEN load this:

https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENT-ID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT-URI&response_type=token

Specify REDIRECT-URI in your account and type it exactly as specified.