Background

You want to share experiences as they are happening in your life. Instagram Stories is a great way to do so, thanks to cross-posting to Facebook, Messenger and Instagram itself, allowing most people to view your stories.

However just like Snapchat, the platforms try to lock you in, with the content you create. Many of my family members and close friends don’t use FB/IG daily, but still wanted to stay up to date on what I’m up to.

Due to lack of an official API, and any kinds of integrations, the only way to access your stories is through the inofficial API the Instagram mobile- and web client use.

Solution

A simple web service that automatically downloads and publishes your stories on various platforms. It’s open source and fully self hosted, check it out on GitHub.

Embed into websites

Showing what you’re up to on the websites you operate is an easy way to make your online presence more personal.

Features

Design similar to instagram.com web

Arrow keys to go back and forth between stories

Support for photos and videos

Support for desktop and mobile browsers

Dismiss stories using ESC key, and clicking the dimmed area

Pre-loading of the next story for instant rendering

Basic features like rendering of the progress bar, the relative time stamp, as well as linking to your profile

Zero dependencies, plain JavaScript, CSS and HTML in a single file

Provide a JSON API

Of course it also provides you with a JSON API, that can be used to integrate your Instagram stories into any app or service. The API includes all relevant data, including the raw image, location and the exact resolution of the media assets.

https://instapipe.herokuapp.com/stories.json?user_id=4409072

Make sure to manually copy & paste this in a new tab to avoid the cross-site scripting protection

Telegram group

Many of my friends don’t want to check Instagram every day, but still want to stay up to date with what I’m up to. Since they all use Telegram already, I set up a channel that automatically shows the stories I post.

A Telegram group containing all my latest stories. In particular nice to get an overview over all your most recent stories. Join it here.

How it works

Instapipe is a simple server, that periodically fetches your most recent Instagram stories. As soon as a new story is available, it will