--- title: Authenticate your Firebase users with Instagram | daily.dev description: A step-by-step guide shows how to add Instagram sign-in to a Firebase web app using a custom OAuth 2.0 integration, since Instagram isn't one of Firebase's... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/authenticate-your-firebase-users-with-instagram-reoarbnwu twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Authenticate your Firebase users with Instagram | daily.dev og:description: A step-by-step guide shows how to add Instagram sign-in to a Firebase web app using a custom OAuth 2.0 integration, since Instagram isn't one of Firebase's... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/authenticate-your-firebase-users-with-instagram-reoarbnwu og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ReOARbnWU.png og:image:alt: Authenticate your Firebase users with Instagram og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Authenticate your Firebase users with Instagram **[Firebase](https://daily.dev/sources/firebase-blog)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A step-by-step guide shows how to add Instagram sign-in to a Firebase web app using a custom OAuth 2.0 integration, since Instagram isn't one of Firebase's built-in identity providers (Google, Facebook, Twitter, GitHub). It covers registering an app with Instagram, setting up the OAuth 2.0 flow with the simple-oauth2 Node.js package, exchanging the auth code for an access token and user identity, minting a Firebase custom auth token server-side, and signing the user into Firebase while updating their profile with Instagram data. A working demo and open-source sample code on GitHub accompany the walkthrough, and the same approach is noted to generalize to other OAuth 2.0 providers like LinkedIn. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I let users sign into my Firebase app with Instagram since it's not a built-in provider? Implement a custom OAuth 2.0 flow: redirect the user to Instagram's authorization endpoint, exchange the returned auth code server-side for an access token and user identity using a package like simple-oauth2, then mint a Firebase custom auth token from the Instagram user ID with createCustomToken and sign the user in client-side via signInWithCustomToken. _daily.dev surfaces implementation guides like this for developers wiring up non-standard identity providers._ ### Why doesn't my Firebase user have an email after signing in with Instagram? Instagram's OAuth API does not return the user's email address, so a Firebase account created through Instagram sign-in will lack an email field entirely. This is expected behavior, not an error, and apps should design their profile handling to tolerate a missing email for these accounts. _Developers troubleshooting third-party auth quirks like this can find grounded explanations on daily.dev._ ### How do I avoid session fixation attacks when building a custom OAuth 2.0 sign-in flow? Generate a random string, pass it as the state parameter in the OAuth authorization request, and also store it as an HTTP cookie with maxAge, secure, and httpOnly flags. When the provider redirects back, compare the returned state query parameter against the stored cookie value to confirm the flow originated from your app before proceeding. _daily.dev helps developers building secure custom auth flows stay grounded in concrete implementation details._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How OAuth works: GitHub and Google login explained](https://daily.dev/posts/how-oauth-works-github-and-google-login-explained-z7bhexnib) · Flavio Copes · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [An Introduction to OAuth 2](https://daily.dev/posts/an-introduction-to-oauth-2-4iox2hqnk) · DigitalOcean Community · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Add Sign in with Vercel to Auth0](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-add-sign-in-with-vercel-to-auth0-imkbaydqx) · Auth0 · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#nodejs](https://daily.dev/tags/nodejs), [#authentication](https://daily.dev/tags/authentication), [#firebase](https://daily.dev/tags/firebase) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/authenticate-your-firebase-users-with-instagram-reoarbnwu) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Authenticate your Firebase users with Instagram","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/authenticate-your-firebase-users-with-instagram-reoarbnwu","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/authenticate-your-firebase-users-with-instagram-reoarbnwu"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T12:21:24.820Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T12:38:54.847Z","description":"A step-by-step guide shows how to add Instagram sign-in to a Firebase web app using a custom OAuth 2.0 integration, since Instagram isn't one of Firebase's...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7ed721de96163685d26ab7e314be3ebc?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7ed721de96163685d26ab7e314be3ebc?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Firebase","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Firebase","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--i395oqZH--/f_auto,q_auto/v1787487448/logos/firebase-blog?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/firebase-blog"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/authenticate-your-firebase-users-with-instagram-reoarbnwu","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"nodejs,authentication,firebase","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Firebase","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/firebase-blog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Authenticate your Firebase users with Instagram"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/authenticate-your-firebase-users-with-instagram-reoarbnwu#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I let users sign into my Firebase app with Instagram since it's not a built-in provider?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Implement a custom OAuth 2.0 flow: redirect the user to Instagram's authorization endpoint, exchange the returned auth code server-side for an access token and user identity using a package like simple-oauth2, then mint a Firebase custom auth token from the Instagram user ID with createCustomToken and sign the user in client-side via signInWithCustomToken. daily.dev surfaces implementation guides like this for developers wiring up non-standard identity providers."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Why doesn't my Firebase user have an email after signing in with Instagram?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Instagram's OAuth API does not return the user's email address, so a Firebase account created through Instagram sign-in will lack an email field entirely. 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