Get the avatar URL for an Instagram page

Use gallery-dl --get-urls "https://www.instagram.com/{page_name}/avatar".

I wanted a programmatic way to get avatar URLs for Instagram pages, and it turns out this is supported in gallery-dl. The trick is to add /avatar to the end of the URL – this doesn’t resolve on instagram.com, but it tells gallery-dl that you want the avatar URL.

For example:

$ gallery-dl --get-urls 'https://www.instagram.com/alexwlchan/avatar'
https://instagram.flhr1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t51.2885-19/319337386_1…

The result is a long URL with a bunch of query parameters; it looks like it’s signed and the URL will only last a short time. I haven’t tested how long it remains valid for.

Note that this avatar isn’t the highest-resolution available – for example, my avatar is 700×700 pixels in my web browser, but gallery-dl only finds an avatar that’s 320×320 pixels. That’s fine for my project, but may be unsuitable if you’re displaying the images at large size.