Instagram Highlights API

What is the Instagram Highlights API?

Pass a profile URL/@handle or numeric userId and get that account's Story Highlight albums as clean JSON — persistent collections (GRWM, Travel, Products…), not live 24h Stories. Each item always keys id, title, coverUrl, itemCount, and owner{id,username,url} — null when that rung did not expose them, never absent. Native tray is often login/WAF gated; we read edge_highlight_reels from logged-out web_profile_info, then a datacenter/mobile highlights_tray. Bare /stories/highlights/ ids from public profile HTML are not returned — those ids do not resolve on /v1/instagram/highlights-details, so an HTML-only shelf is 503 ids_unresolvable (retryable, 0 credits) instead of a billed 200 that leads to 404s. userId skips handle→ID resolve; when only userId is set we reverse-resolve the username so the WPI shelf can still run. A live handle that neighbouring endpoints resolve is never 404: resolver miss is 502 (pass userId from /v1/instagram/basic-profile or /v1/instagram/profile-search), tray miss or unresolvable HTML ids is 503 (0 credits). 404 only when Instagram confirms the account is gone. This list and /v1/instagram/highlights-details are a pair: details needs an id only a full shelf (or Instagram's web UI) can give you. Flat 1 credit on a full shelf. Pass cache=true for the 24h shared cache.

What you get

• id / title / coverUrl / itemCount / owner from a full tray or WPI shelf
• 503 ids_unresolvable (0 credits) instead of HTML-only ids that 404 on details
• Persistent albums (not live Stories)
• Flat 1 credit on a full shelf; 5xx do not bill

Fill in the parameters below and copy a ready-to-run request, or open the live Playground to run it against your account (no API key paste).

curl "https://api.captapi.com/v1/instagram/highlights?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fnatgeo%2F" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer capt_live_..."
# or: -H "x-api-key: capt_live_..."

Example response

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "userId": "787132",
    "username": "natgeo",
    "totalReturned": 1,
    "degraded": true,
    "degradedReason": "profile-html-ids-only",
    "highlights": [
      {
        "id": "17895558443196850",
        "title": null,
        "coverUrl": null,
        "itemCount": null,
        "owner": null
      }
    ]
  }
}

Billing metadata is returned in response headers: X-Captapi-Credits (credits charged), X-Captapi-Cache (hit or miss), and X-Captapi-Source. Failed requests (4xx/5xx) are never charged. See the full list of error codes in the error reference.

Response structure

A successful call returns success and a data object with the following fields:

Parameters

Authentication: send your key as Authorization: Bearer capt_live_.... A typical call costs 1 credit. Pass cache=true for a free 24h cache hit; default is always fresh.

How it works

1. 1. Sign up — get 100 free credits, no card required.
2. 2. Create a key from your dashboard.
3. 3. Send one request to /v1/instagram/highlights and parse the JSON response.

Use cases

Frequently asked questions

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