What is https://i.instagram.com/api/v1

Question

I am digging into Instagram APIs and find out a URL https://i.instagram.com/api/v1 which used by many git repos(some are recently updated) but when I go to Instagram there is no such url available there. Can anyone guide me what is the use of this url and how I can use it because when I hit

https://i.instagram.com/api/v1/accounts/login/

by POSTMAN i got below message

{ "message": "Your version of Instagram is out of date. Please upgrade your app to log in to Instagram.", "status": "fail",
"error_type": "needs_upgrade" }

One more thing. I am with my friend who work in android he has done reverse engineering on a app which use for increase followers and that app is also using same endpoints and working on that app.

Answer 1

It's November 2021, and somehow the API https://i.instagram.com/api/v1 still works, but I believe they have changed the way you use it.

NOTE: The given information is just for educational purposes

Let's take the user/{user_id}/info endpoint of this API, which returns basic information about the user_id.

The URL with this endpoint would be

https://i.instagram.com/api/v1/users/176702683/info/

If you paste this link into your browser you'll get the following message

{"message":"useragent mismatch","status":"fail"}

This means that API must be called via mobile user-agent. read more about user-agent here

We can solve this problem by providing a mobile user-agent string.

Using python requests library

!pip install requests
import requests
URL = https://i.instagram.com/api/v1/users/176702683/info/
headers = {'User-Agent':'Instagram 76.0.0.15.395 Android (24/7.0; 640dpi; 1440x2560; samsung; SM-G930F; herolte; samsungexynos8890; en_US; 138226743)'} 
# samsung mobile user-agent

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)

print(response.json())

Output:

{'user': {'username': 'marcelotwelve',
  'pk': 176702683,
  'profile_pic_url': 'https://instagram.fstv6-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t51.2885-19/s150x150/233796637_544571223333074_8761964745157634211_n.jpg?_nc_ht=instagram.fstv6-1.fna.fbcdn.net&_nc_ohc=eGzrZ-M4-38AX_tcXpC&edm=AEF8tYYBAAAA&ccb=7-4&oh=f9d6b82dc00b16b86eaabe518aea4a3f&oe=618DB9E6&_nc_sid=a9513d'},
 'status': 'ok'}

NOTE: Please be aware of how you use it