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Supported formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG, APNG, TIFF, BMP, PDF, XCF

Imgur's API exposes much of the Imgur infrastructure via a standardized programmatic interface. Using Imgur's API, you can upload images and completely manage your Imgur account, using your programming language of choice. Here are just a few of the things you can do:

• Upload images anonymously
• Upload images into accounts
• Create and manage photo albums
• Delete images
• List all images in your account

NOTE: The current version of the API, version 2, is considered to be in beta, which means that there may be bugs. If you encounter one, please report it to alan@imgur.com and he will fix it ASAP.

The Imgur API is available for non-commercial use by outside developers. Commercial use is possible by prior arrangement. If you wish to use it for such purposes, please contact Imgur first. Commercial purposes include websites and/or applications that earn, or are expected to earn, over $500 per month.

The anonymous API lets you upload images, get site statistics, get information on images, and read the images from the gallery. Anonymous API users get 500 API credits per hour, which is equal to 50 uploads per hour. If you don't want to upload images into your account, and you're ok with the 50 uploads per hour limit, then the anonymous API might be for you.

Register an application for the anonymous API

The authenticated API uses either OAuth to allow uploading images into Imgur accounts, and also gives the developer full control over all account functions. You're able to create albums, upload images into albums, list all images in the account, delete previously uploaded images, etc. Everything you can do with your account on the Imgur website, you can do with the authenticated API (with the exception of changing core account settings). Authenticated API users get 1000 API credits per hour (twice the amount of the anonymous API), which is equal to 100 uploads per hour. However, users with pro accounts get 2000 API credits per hour (twice that of a non-pro account).

Click here for help on authenticating

Register an application for the authenticated API for OAuth

The Imgur API is a RESTful API based on HTTP requests and XML or JSON responses. If you're familiar with the APIs of Twitter, Amazon's S3, del.icio.us, or a host of other web services, you'll feel right at home.

The API is accessed by making HTTP requests to an endpoint URL, in which GET or POST variables contain information about what you wish to access. Every endpoint is accessible via standard HTTP (port 80) and SSL-enabled HTTPS (port 443).

The default HTTP endpoint is:

api.imgur.com/

The default SSL endpoint is:

https://api.imgur.com/

Everything in the API (methods, parameters, etc.) is fixed to a version number, and every call must contain one. Different Versions are available at different endpoint URLs. The latest version is Version 2.

The stable HTTP endpoint for the latest version is:

api.imgur.com/2/

The previous version, version 1, is available at:

https://api.imgur.com/1/

The documentation for Version 1 can be found here:

code.google.com/p/imgur-api/

Responses are either XML (the default) or JSON. Response formats are specified by supplying an extension to the API call. For example, to specify a JSON response after an image is uploaded, the URL is:

api.imgur.com/2/upload.json

and to specify an XML response, the URL is:

api.imgur.com/2/upload.xml

JSON responses are directly analogous to their XML counterparts, and each response follows a standard format. The root node of the response is always the function call name, and similar responses use the same structure. For example whenever an image is returned, whether it's after an upload while returning a list of images from an account, the structure is always the same.

api.imgur.com/2/upload.xml

api.imgur.com/2/account/images.xml

To use the Authenticated API, the first thing you have to do is register an application and obtain your consumer key and secret. This key and secret scheme is used for the OAuth authentication protocol.

Because of OAuth, you, as the application developer,

• don't have the burden of keeping potentially damaging credentials for your users (especially considering that a lot of people use the same password for multiple services);
• don't have to worry about the user changing their password — a user can change his or her password and the OAuth "connection" to your app will still work;
• don't have to worry about other applications masquerading as your application as only your application can set the byline with your application name;

To access OAuth, the following endpoints must be used:

• https://api.imgur.com/oauth/request_token
• https://api.imgur.com/oauth/authorize
• https://api.imgur.com/oauth/access_token

List parameters are available to all list resources, and can be set using either the GET or POST request methods.

Name	Required	Description
page	optional	Page number of the result set (default: 1)
count	optional	Limit the number of results per page. (default: 30, max: 100)

Example:

api.imgur.com/2/account/images.json?count=42&page=6

The Imgur API uses a credit allocation system to ensure fair distribution of capacity. For the authenticated API, each standard account is allocated 1,000 credits per hour, and each pro account is allocated 2,000 credits per hour. You can check the status of your credits with the following call:

api.imgur.com/2/credits.xml

or,

api.imgur.com/2/credits.json

In addition, each request contains rate limit information in the HTTP response headers.

HTTP Header	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	Total credits that can be allocated.
X-RateLimit-Remaining	Total credits available.
X-RateLimit-Reset	Timestamp (unix epoch) for when the credits will be reset.

Unless otherwise noted, an API call deducts 1 credit from your allocation. However, uploads have a significantly higher computational cost on our backend, and deduct 10 credits per call. This means that each standard account can have 100 uploads per hour, while each pro account can have 200 uploads per hour.