Facebook Stories API from Meta

This document shows you how to use the Facebook Stories API to publish Stories on Facebook Pages.

To publish a story, you will perform the following steps:

1. Upload your media to the Meta servers
2. Publish the media to your Page as a Story

Before you start

This guide assumes you have read the Pages API Overview and implemented the needed components, and successfully completed the Get Started guide.

• You will need to implement Facebook Login or Facebook Login for Business to ask your app users for permissions needed to access their Facebook Pages and to receive Page access tokens.

• Your app users will need to be able to perform the CREATE_CONTENT task on the Page represented in the Page access token and give your app the following permissions:

  • pages_manage_posts
  • pages_read_engagement
  • pages_show_list

If you are using a business system user in your API requests, the business_management permission is also required.

Media requirements

You must provide a photo or video that fit the following specifications.

Photo specifications

Video specifications

Limitations

• A photo or video uploaded for a story can not have been used in a previously published post
• A video story can not exceed 60 seconds
• To include archived stories in your GET requests to see a list of your stories, you must turn your Facebook story archive on

Best practices

Code examples within this document are formatted for readability. Replace bold, italics values, such as page_id, with your values.

Video stories

To publish a video story on a Facebook Page, you will initialize a video upload session with Meta servers, upload the video to Meta servers, then publish the video story.

Step 1: Initialize session

To initialize an upload session, send a POST request to the /page_id/video_stories endpoint, where page_id is the ID for your Facebook Page, with the upload_phase parameter set to start.

Example request

curl -X POST "https://graph.facebook.com/v21.0/page_id/video_stories" \
      -d '{
           "upload_phase":"start",
         }'

On success, your app receives a JSON response with the ID for the video and the Facebook URL where you will be uploading the video.

Example response

{
  "video_id": "video_id",
  "upload_url": "https://rupload.facebook.com/video-upload/v21.0/video_id",
}  

Step 2: Upload a video

Now that you have initialized an upload session and received the upload URL, you can upload your video. You can upload either:

• a hosted video file on a public facing http/https server, such as a CDN
• a local video file from your device

Upload a hosted file

To upload a hosted file, send a POST request to the upload_url endpoint you received in the initialization step with the following parameters:

• file_url set to the URL for your video file

Be sure the host is rupload.facebook.com.

The API will now reject files hosted on sites that restrict access via robots.txt. Developers need to ensure that the hosting site allows the “facebookexternalhit/1.1 ( http://www.facebook.com/externalhit_uatext.php)” user agent to allow fetching the hosted file.

Files hosted on Meta CDN (e.g.. fbcdn URLs) will get rejected. Instead, developers can use the crossposting feature to publish a video on multiple pages without uploading the video to each page. Refer to our detailed guidance on crossposting.

Example request

curl -X POST "https://rupload.facebook.com/video-upload/v21.0/video_id" \
	-H "file_url: https://some.cdn.url/video.mp4"

Upload a local file

To upload a local file, send a POST request to the upload_url endpoint you received in the initialization step with the following parameters:

• offset set to 0
• file_size set to the total size in bytes of the video being uploaded

Example request

curl -X POST "https://rupload.facebook.com/video-upload/v21.0/video_id" \
	-H "offset: 0" \
        -H "file_size: file_size_in_bytes" \
	--data-binary "@/path/to/file/my_video_file.mp4"

On upload success, your app receives a JSON response with success set to true.

Example upload response

{
    "success": true
}  

Interrupted upload

If the video upload is interrupted, you can either restart the upload or resume it.

• To restart the upload, resend the POST request and set offset to 0.
• To resume the upload, resend the POST request with offset set to the bytes_transfered value from a status check.

Get the upload status

To check a status of your video, during upload or publishing, send a GET request to the /video_id endpoint with the following parameter:

• fields set to status

Example request

curl -X GET "https://graph.facebook.com/v21.0/video_id" \
	-d "fields=status"

On success, your app receives a JSON response that contains:

• A status object that contains:
  • video_status with a value of ready, processing, expired, or error
  • uploading_phase object with the following key-value pairs:
    • status set to in_progress, not_started, complete, or error
    • bytes_transfered set to the bytes that have been uploaded. can be used as the value for offset if the upload is interrupted.
  • processing_phase object with the following key-value pairs:
    • status set to in_progress, not_started, complete, or error
  • processing_phase object with the following key-value pairs:
    • status set to in_progress, not_started, complete, or error
    • publish_status set to published or not_published
    • publish_time set to a UNIX timestamp of the actual or published time

Example response

{
  "status": {
    "video_status": "processing", 
    "uploading_phase": {
      "status": "in_progress", 
      "bytes_transfered": 50002 
    },
    "processing_phase": {
      "status": "not_started"
    }
    "publishing_phase": {
      "status": "not_started",
      "publish_status": "published",
      "publish_time": 234523452 
    }
  }
}

{
  "status": {
    "video_status": "processing", 
    "uploading_phase": {
      "status": "complete"
    },
    "processing_phase": {
      "status": "not_started",
      "error": {
        "message": "Resolution too low. Video must have a minimum resolution of 540p."
      }
    }
    "publishing_phase": {
      "status": "not_started"
    }
  }
}

Step 3. Publish a video story

To publish your video story to your Page, you will send a POST to the /page_id/video_stories endpoint with the following parameters:

• video_id set to the ID for your uploaded video
• upload_phase set to finish

Example request

curl -X POST "https://graph.facebook.com/v21.0/page_id/video_stories" \
      -d '{
           "video_id": "video_id",
           "upload_phase": "finish"
         }'

On success, your app receives a JSON response that contains the following key-value pairs:

• success set to true
• post_id set to the ID for your story post

Example response

{
  "success": true,
  "post_id": 1234
}

Photo stories

Step 1. Upload a photo

Visit the Page Posts Reference to learn how to upload a photo to Meta servers using the /page_id/photos endpoint. Be sure to include the published parameter and set it to false.

Step 2. Publish a photo story

To publish your photo story to your Page, you will send a POST to the /page_id/photo_stories endpoint with the following parameters:

• photo_id set to the ID for your uploaded photo

Example request

curl -X POST "https://graph.facebook.com/v21.0/page_id/photo_stories" \
      -d '{
           "photo_id": "photo_id"
         }'

On success, your app receives a JSON response that contains the following key-value pairs:

• success set to true
• post_id set to the ID for your story post

Example response

{
  "success": true,
  "post_id": 1234
}

Get stories

To get a list of all stories for a Page and data about each story, send a GET request to the /page_id/stories endpoint where page_id is the ID for the Page you want to view.

Example request

    
curl -i -X GET "https://graph.facebook.com/v21.0/page_id/stories"

On success, your app receives a JSON response with an array of objects where each object contains information about a story published on the Page. Each object contains the following key-value pairs:

• The post_id set to the ID for the published story post
• The status set to PUBLISHED, ARCHIVED
• The creation_time set to UNIX timestamp when the story was published
• The media_type set to either video or photo
• The media_id set to the ID for the video or photo in the story post
• The url set to the Facebook URL for the story post, such as https://facebook.com/stories/8283482737484972

Example Response

{
  "data": [
    {
      "post_id": "post_id",
      "status": "PUBLISHED",
      "creation_time": "123456",
      "media_type": "video",
      "media_id": "video_id",
      "url": "https://facebook.com/stories…"
    },
    {
      "post_id": "post_id",
      "status": "PUBLISHED",
      "creation_time": "123456",
      "media_type": "photo",
      "media_id": "photo_id",
      "url": "https://facebook.com/stories…"
    },
    {
      "post_id": "post_id",
      "status": "ARCHIVED",
      "creation_time": "123456",
      "media_type": "photo",
      "media_id": "photo_id",
      "url": "https://facebook.com/stories…"
    },
    ...
  ],
}

You can filter stories by status, published or archived, and date, using the since and until parameters.

See also

Learn more about the endpoints and concepts discussed in this guide.

Relevant guides

• Business system user
• Facebook Login
• Facebook Login for Business
• Graph API – Paginated Results with since and until

Endpoint references

• Page Reference
• Page Video Stories Reference
• Page Photo Stories Reference
• Video Reference
• Stories Insights Reference