Flickr Original Images Atom Feed

The Problem

I want my desktop wallpaper to rotate through my Flickr Favorites. I need the original (or large-sized) images, and I want the images to automatically download to my Dropbox.

The Solution

Node.js + IFTTT

Flickr’s RSS and Atom feeds don’t offer the original image size in the feeds. I wrote a Node.js app that uses the Flickr API to expose an Atom feed with larger image sizes.

IFTTT has a channel for RSS/Atom feeds and a channel for Dropbox. This is the recipe I needed:

IFTTT downloads the images (within 15 minutes after favoriting) to my Dropbox:

Usage

I’m sharing this in case anyone else wants a free solution. To use it, just use this IFTTT recipe. You’ll have to edit the feed url. Change the id portion to your Flickr Id. You can find your Flickr Id using idGettr.

For example, my Flickr Id is 11946169@N00, so the url I use is http://flickr.donnierayjones.com/favorites/11946169@N00.atom

I also expose the originals of your own uploaded images. The feed URL for this (assuming Flickr Id 11946169@N00) is http://flickr.donnierayjones.com/photos/11946169@N00.atom.

The Open Web

This is what I love about the Web. I don’t have to pay for an app in an App Store. I can just fork a couple of repositories on Github, write a quick Node.js app, and deploy to Heroku for free.