How To Post an Image With twitter-api-v2 – Twitter X Bot

How To Post an Image With twitter-api-v2 – Twitter X Bot

Posting images to Twitter programmatically can enhance your social media automation. The Twitter API v2, combined with the twitter-api-v2 Node.js package, makes this task straightforward. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to post an image using the Twitter API v2 with Node.js.

Prerequisites

Before we start, head over to an article we created earlier – how to create a twitter x bot. This guides you on how to set up a Twitter X developer account and code your first bot to post a tweet.

Now that you’ve followed the earlier guide, your project folder should look something like this –

Modifying the Twitter X bot code to handle media upload

Step 1:

Now that we’ve got a Twitter bot set up, that can post a tweet, we need to modify a few things.

First of all, we need to create an images folder. Once done, add an image of your choice to the folder, for this example, the Twitter / X icon is being used.

Step 3:

Add two new require statements to help with path and file reading.

const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

Step 2:

Now we want to add the following to the beginning of the myfunction()

    const imagePath = path.join(__dirname, '/images/twitter-x-icon.png');
    // Read the image file
    const imageData = fs.readFileSync(imagePath);
    // Upload media (image) to Twitter
    const mediaId = await client.v1.uploadMedia(imageData, { mimeType: 'image' });         

The above builds up the image path string, then adds it to the file reader function before, uploading it to the Twitter X API, leaving us with an mediaId object that we can pass into the posting function.

Step 3:

Now we adjust the tweet function to pass in both the string body of the tweet and the media object.

 const tweet = await client.v2.tweet("my Test Tweet", {media: {media_ids: [mediaId] }});

Your entire code should look like the following now –

const {TwitterApi} = require('twitter-api-v2');
const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');


const client = new TwitterApi({
    appKey: 'your-saved-appKey',
    appSecret: 'your-saved-app-secret',
    accessToken: 'your-saved-access-token',
    accessSecret: 'your-saved-access-token',
});

async function myfunction() {


(async () => {

  try {

    const imagePath = path.join(__dirname, '/images/twitter-x-icon.png');
    // Read the image file
    const imageData = fs.readFileSync(imagePath);
    // Upload media (image) to Twitter
    const mediaId = await client.v1.uploadMedia(imageData, { mimeType: 'image' });
    // Post a tweet with the uploaded image
    const tweet = await client.v2.tweet("my Test Tweet", {media: {media_ids: [mediaId] }});

    console.log('Tweet posted successfully:', tweet);

  } catch (error) {

    console.error('Error posting tweet:', error);

  }


})();

}
    
function start() {
    return myfunction();
}

// Call start
(async () => {
    console.log('before start');

    await start();

    console.log('after start');
})();

Step 4:

Now let’s run the bot

node bot.js

After execution, you should get an output similar to below –

Tweet posted successfully: {
  data: {
    edit_history_tweet_ids: [ '1814772966619542013' ],
    id: '1814772966619542013',
    text: 'my Test Tweet with an image https://t.co/D27tgia1bd'
  }
}

Now head over to your Twitter X account and you should see the tweet, see the example below

tweet with image using twitter-api-v2

Conclusion

In conclusion, mastering the process of posting an image using the Twitter API v2 with a Twitter X bot not only enhances your automation skills but also amplifies your social media engagement. By following the detailed steps outlined in this guide, you can seamlessly integrate image posting functionality into your bot, ensuring that your content is visually appealing and engaging for your audience.

Whether you’re a developer looking to expand your toolset or a social media enthusiast aiming to streamline your posting process, leveraging the Twitter API v2 offers a robust and efficient solution. Stay creative, keep experimenting, and let your bot handle the rest!

As always, any questions about posting images with the twitter-api-v2 package, drop them in the comments.

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