Meta shut down the Instagram Basic Display API on 4 December 2024, and nothing replaced it for personal accounts. Feeds now come from Meta's official Instagram API, which only works with Business or Creator accounts. A personal account has to switch to a professional one, then connect through the new API, with your own code or a hosted service such as FeedFusion.
If an Instagram feed on your site went blank in December 2024, this is probably why. Meta announced on 4 September 2024 that it was retiring the Instagram Basic Display API, and from 4 December 2024 every request to it returns an error. Plugins and custom code built on it stopped showing posts overnight.
Basic Display was the simple, read-only way to show your own posts on a website, and it worked with personal accounts. Its replacement is part of Meta's Instagram API, which is built for professional accounts. For anyone showing a feed, three things changed:
Meta's Instagram Platform docs now list three ways to connect. All three only work with professional accounts:
If you're building it yourself, start from Meta's own overview: it's the page Meta keeps current, and these details have already changed more than once.
If the account is personal, this is the only way back. In the Instagram app, open your settings and switch the account type to professional. Creator or Business both work for a website feed. It's free, and your posts and followers stay as they are.
Create a Meta app, add one of the setups above and request the permission to read media. From then on your server exchanges the login for a long-lived token, refreshes it before it expires, fetches the posts and keeps copies of the images. It's all doable, it just never quite ends.
This is the job FeedFusion does. You connect the account once through Instagram Login, and it keeps the token fresh, stores the posts and their images, and gives you a snippet to paste or a JSON endpoint for your own code. The free plan covers one feed and 10,000 feed loads a month.
The Quickstart takes about three minutes, and the API reference covers the JSON option.
Meta announced the retirement on 4 September 2024. Since 4 December 2024, every request to the Basic Display API returns an error, so feeds that depended on it stopped loading.
Meta's official Instagram API, in three setups: Unified Login (Meta's recommendation for new integrations, which needs a business portfolio), Instagram Login (no Facebook Page needed) and Facebook Login. All three are for professional accounts only.
Not through the API. Meta's Instagram API only works with Business and Creator accounts. Switching a personal account to a professional one is free and keeps your posts and followers, and after that the account can connect again.
No. With the Instagram Login setup the account owner logs in with Instagram, and no Facebook Page is required. That's the setup FeedFusion uses.
JSON API reference, widget customisation, framework integrations.
Read the docs