Getting an access token from the Imgur API without user intervention

Question

I'm currently using google scripts to upload an images to an imgur account. However, when I use this URL: https://api.imgur.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=*clientID*&response_type=token I don't get a valid JSON response. When I paste it directly into the browser I go to the oAuth page. How do I avoid the oauth page and get a valid response when trying to get an access token.

function authorizeTokenGET () {
  url = "https://api.imgur.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id="+clientID+"&response_type=token";
  response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);
  console.log(url);
  console.log(JSON.parse(response))
  
}

The error: SyntaxError: Unexpected token < in JSON at position 0

(Yes I did register my application with the anonymous usage without user authorization option)

Karun Ellango Karun Ellango · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-29T08:47:52

What you want to do is actually get the refresh token and use that to generate access tokens, as described in the documentation here https://apidocs.imgur.com/#oauth-20-overview.

refresh_token: is used to request new access_tokens. Since access_tokens expire after 1 month, we need a way to request new ones without going through the entire authorization step again. It does not expire.

As it says, once we have a refresh token (which lasts forever), we can use that to get the access token whenever we need them and skip the oauth step.

Getting an access token from the Imgur API without user intervention

1 Answers