Instagram API -Get the userId

Question

We had integrated instagram api (with {userId}/media/recent) to get media feeds based on userId. It was working fine until June 1 2016 . Now on how do I get userId for new instagram pages which we need to include as with the new release of instagram it seems difficult. This is the error messsage we get from a site from where we used to get instagram userId. "This service is no longer available as of 01. June, due to changes in Instagram's API rules" from http://www.otzberg.net/iguserid/

Regards Raghav

Answer 1

Definitely not the most elegant way, but without involving a running browser or an approved application, is to use the (undocumented?) search API:

https://www.instagram.com/web/search/topsearch/?context=user&count=0&query={username}

This returns matching users (as count is set to 0 it should not return more than one user).

After validating the results (checking if user includes one item), you can get the userid e.g. in javascript with

response.users[0].user.pk

where response is an object with the parsed response.