Authenticate Your Developer Application
You can set up your developer application to gain access to the Reddit API, letting you develop nifty applications and integrations that seamlessly interact with Reddit's ads platform.
Before you begin, you should have:
- A Reddit Ads account.
- A developer application. You'll need its app ID and secret.
- Access to a terminal application.
1. Authorize your application
Go to your business's developer applications and find your application's app ID. Replace the values in the following link and navigate to it:
Authorize app
https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/authorize?client_id=&response_type=code&state=&redirect_uri=&duration=&scope=Reference: Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
{{App ID}} | The ID of your dev app |
{{Random String}} | This can be set to any string with no spaces or special characters, like the name of your dev app. This is used to detect cross-site request forgeries (CSRF). You can also set a signature for additional security. |
{{Redirect URI registered for app}} | The redirect URL you set for your dev app. Don't change redirect_uri to redirect_url. This parameter must be used so that the application can correctly route mobile and web application redirects. |
{{Duration}} | The time limit that this access token will expire. You probably want to set this to permanent, but you can set it to temporary to make the access code valid for only one hour. If you set this to temporary, you won't be able to refresh this option. |
{{Scope}} | A comma-separated list of the actions performable with the access token. |
Reference: Scope
| Scope | Description |
|---|---|
adsconversions | Post conversion events by enabling access to the Conversions endpoint |
adsedit | Edit ads data |
adsread | Read advertising data for your account |
history | Access submission history |
read | Read posts and comments for your Reddit user account |
Check that the username listed matches the account you want to authorize the app. If the username is correct, select Allow.
If an unexpected username is displayed, you're in an active Reddit session. To fix this, log out of your account, log into the correct account, then revisit the URL.
You will be sent to the redirect URL that you provided earlier. The URL in your address bar will have 2 query parameters: the state and the code. Copy and record the code value and remove the #_ characters at the end of the value, if any.
This code should be used within the next ten minutes and only once per authorization.
Example: Find code value from redirect URL
| Redirect URL | Code value |
|---|---|
https://notarealbrand.myshopify.com/oauth/callback?state=my-state&code=Ve49meZ9oh3lZFY35CEizm3jTsfJeA#_ | Ve49meZ9oh3lZFY35CEizm3jTsfJeA |
2. Get your access token from the Reddit API
Open a terminal window and execute the following cURL command with your noted values:
Get access token
curl -X POST https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token \
-H 'content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
-A '' \
-u ':' \
-d 'grant_type=authorization_code&code=&redirect_uri='If successful, you will receive a response that looks like this:
{
"access_token": {{Access token}},
"token_type": "bearer",
"expires_in": {{Expiration time in Unix epoch}},
"refresh_token": {{Refresh token}},
"scope": {{Scope string}}
}
Record the value for access_token and refresh_token. You'll use access_token to access the Reddit Ads API for either one hour (3600) or one day (86400), whichever is listed for the value for expires_in.
3. (Optional) Refresh your access token
You can use an active access token to maintain continuous access to the API without requiring re-authentication.
To refresh your token, open a terminal window and execute the following cURL command with your noted values:
Refresh access token
curl -X POST https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token \
-A '' \
-u ':' \
-d 'grant_type=refresh_token&refresh_token='If successful, you will receive a response that looks like this:
{
"access_token": {{Access token}},
"token_type": "bearer",
"expires_in": {{Expiration time in Unix epoch}},
"refresh_token": {{Refresh token}},
"scope": {{Scope string}}
}
Record the value for access_token and refresh_token. You'll use access_token to access the Reddit Ads API for either one hour (3600) or one day (86400), whichever is listed for the value for expires_in.