Overview¶

Use this endpoint to upload images to Twitter. It returns a media_id which can be used in most Twitter endpoints that accept images. For example, a media_id value can be used to create a Tweet with an attached photo using the POST statuses/update endpoint.

This is a simple image upload endpoint, with a limited set of features. The preferred alternative is the chunked upload endpoint which supports both images and videos, provides better reliability, allows resumption of file uploads, and other important features. In the future, new features will only be supported for the chunked upload endpoint.

See the Uploading media guide for constraints and requirements on media files.

Use the media metadata endpoint to provide image alt text information.

Ensure the POST is a multipart/form-data request. Either upload the raw binary (media parameter) of the file, or its base64-encoded contents (media_data parameter). Use raw binary when possible, because base64 encoding results in larger file sizes

The response provides a media identifier in the media_id (64-bit integer) and media_id_string (string) fields. Use the media_id_string provided in the API response from JavaScript and other languages that cannot accurately represent a long integer.

The returned media_id is only valid for expires_after_secs seconds. Any attempt to use media_id after this time period in other endpoints will result in an HTTP 4xx Bad Request.

The additional_owners field enables media to be uploaded media as user A and then used to create Tweets as user B.

Please note that for certain types of data (tweet_gif, tweet_video and amplify_video), you need to use the chunked upload end-point.

Request¶

Requests should be either multipart/form-data or application/x-www-form-urlencoded POST formats.

Note: The domain for this endpoint is upload.twitter.com

Resource URL¶

https://upload.twitter.com/1.1/media/upload.json

Resource Information¶

Parameters¶

Example Request¶

POST https://upload.twitter.com/1.1/media/upload.json

Example Response¶

{
  "media_id": 710511363345354753,
  "media_id_string": "710511363345354753",
  "size": 11065,
  "expires_after_secs": 86400,
  "image": {
    "image_type": "image/jpeg",
    "w": 800,
    "h": 320
  }
}