I am creating a personal app and I am having some trouble. I have tried using the Instagram API to get a JSON feed of images by hashtag (any image insta, not just images on my profile).
My issue with the API is that i cannot seem to search public images without having my app in live mode. i keep getting a 400 unauthorized access_token error, even though i do have a valid access token.
I cannot put my app in live mode because insta require a privacy policy url and a company name and I am not a company. I am an independent dev making a personal app.
Whilst searching through stack overflow i cam across this url:
https://www.instagram.com/bikerpicgirl/media/
This allows me to get images by user without the API. I am wondering if anyone knows a similar url where i can get a feed like this but for hashtags instead of users.
I could just make a scraper that mimics the search process but this seems way to overkill and is alot of effort for something that should be so simple.
Yes, you can explore Instagram media by hashtags with this url format:
/explore/tags/your-tag/
for example if hashtag is #amsterdam your url would look something like this:
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/amsterdam/
As Jon Goodwin mentioned in the comment this example link is subject to change and may not work in the future.