Imgur Image Hosting

Imgur is a free image hosting service. Upload images and get URLs for sharing, embedding in articles, or using in documentation.

When to Use

• Upload images to get shareable URLs
• Host images for blog posts or documentation
• Get image URLs for use in Markdown content
• Anonymous image uploads (no account needed)

Prerequisites

Set the following environment variable:

export IMGUR_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id

Get your Client ID from: https://api.imgur.com/oauth2/addclient

When registering:

• Authorization type: "OAuth 2 authorization without a callback URL"
• You only need the Client ID for anonymous uploads

Important: When using $VAR in a command that pipes to another command, wrap the command containing $VAR in bash -c '...'. Due to a Claude Code bug, environment variables are silently cleared when pipes are used directly.

bashCopy

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.example.com" -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"'

How to Use

Upload Local Image

curl -X POST https://api.imgur.com/3/image -H "Authorization: Client-ID ${IMGUR_CLIENT_ID}" -F "image=@/path/to/image.png"

Upload from URL

curl -X POST https://api.imgur.com/3/image -H "Authorization: Client-ID ${IMGUR_CLIENT_ID}" -F "image=https://example.com/image.png" -F "type=url"

Upload Base64

curl -X POST https://api.imgur.com/3/image -H "Authorization: Client-ID ${IMGUR_CLIENT_ID}" -F "image=$(base64 -i /path/to/image.png)" -F "type=base64"

Optional Parameters

curl -X POST https://api.imgur.com/3/image -H "Authorization: Client-ID ${IMGUR_CLIENT_ID}" -F "image=@screenshot.png" -F "title=My Screenshot" -F "description=Screenshot from my app"

Response

{
  "data": {
  "id": "abc123",
  "link": "https://i.imgur.com/abc123.png",
  "deletehash": "xyz789"
  },
  "success": true,
  "status": 200
}

Key fields:

• data.link - Public URL to use in Markdown: ![img](https://i.imgur.com/abc123.png)
• data.deletehash - Save this to delete the image later

Delete Image

Replace <your-deletehash> with the deletehash from the upload response:

curl -X DELETE https://api.imgur.com/3/image/<your-deletehash> -H "Authorization: Client-ID ${IMGUR_CLIENT_ID}"

Rate Limits

• ~12,500 requests/day
• ~1,250 uploads/day (uploads cost 10 credits)
• Headers show remaining: X-RateLimit-ClientRemaining

Guidelines

1. Save deletehash: Store it if you need to delete images later
2. Anonymous uploads: Images are not tied to any account
3. Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, APNG, TIFF, BMP, PDF, XCF, WebP
4. Max file size: 20MB for images, 200MB for GIFs

API Reference

• Documentation: https://apidocs.imgur.com/
• Register App: https://api.imgur.com/oauth2/addclient