Getting the "real" Facebook profile picture URL from graph API

Facebook graph API tells me I can get a profile picture of a user using

http://graph.facebook.com/517267866/picture?type=large

which works fine. However, when you type above URL into a browser, the actual address of the image is

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/profile-ak-snc1/v227/560/83/n517267866_1928.jpg

How can I get the second URL using the first one programmatically?

Solution 1:

The first URL gives a HTTP 302 (temporary redirect) to the second. So, to find the second URL programatically, you could issue a HTTP request for the first URL and get the Location header of the response.

That said, don't rely on the second URL being pemanent. Reading a little in to the HTTP response code (of 302 as opposed to a permanent 301), it is possible Facebook changes those URLs on a regular basis to prevent people from—for example—using their servers to host images.

Edit: Notice that the CDN URL the OP posted is now a 404, so we know that we cannot rely on the URL being long-lived. Also, if you're linking to the Graph API from an <img> on a SSL-secured page, there's a parameter you have to add make sure you use https://graph.facebook.com.

Update: The API has added a parameter – redirect=false – which causes JSON to be returned rather than a redirect. The retruned JSON includes the CDN URL:

{
   "data": {
      "url": "http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/...",
      "is_silhouette": false
   }
}

Again, I wouldn't rely on this CDN URL being long-lived. The JSON response is sent with permissive CORS headers, so you're free to do this client-side with XHR requests.

Solution 2:

http://graph.facebook.com/517267866/?fields=picture&type=large

Would return the URL in JSON

Solution 3:

I realize this is late, but there is another way to obtain the URL of the profile image.

To your original url, you can add the parameter redirect=false to obtain the actual URL of the image you'd normally be redirected to.

So, the new request would look like http://graph.facebook.com/517267866/picture?type=large&redirect=false. This will return a JSON object containing the URL of the picture and a boolean is_silhouette (true if the picture is the default Facebook picture).

The picture will be of the size you specified, as well. You can test this additionally by adding dimensions: http://graph.facebook.com/517267866/picture?type=large&redirect=false&width=400&height=400

Solution 4:

For anyone else looking to get the profile pic in iOS:

I just did this to get the user's Facebook pic:

NSString *profilePicURL = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://graph.facebook.com/%@/picture?type=large", fbUserID];

where 'fbUserID' is the Facebook user's profile ID.

This way I can always just call the url in profilePicURL to get the image, and I always get it, no problem. If you've already got the user ID, you don't need any API requests, just stick the ID into the url after facebook.com/.

FYI to anyone looking who needs the fbUserID in iOS:

if (FBSession.activeSession.isOpen) {
    [[FBRequest requestForMe] startWithCompletionHandler:
     ^(FBRequestConnection *connection,
       NSDictionary<FBGraphUser> *user,
       NSError *error) {
         if (!error) {
             self.userName = user.name;
             self.fbUserID = user.id;
         }
     }];
}

You'll need an active FBSession for that to work (see Facebook's docs, and the "Scrumptious" example).

Solution 5:

If you want the JSON of a good quality profile picture with the URL you can use that:

http://graph.facebook.com/517267866/picture?height=1024&redirect=false

if you just need the picture use it without the parameter redirect:

http://graph.facebook.com/517267866/picture?height=1024

517267866 is the profile ID of one of the above examples. Put the facebook id that you need

I hope that helps