XML-RPC is a spec for doing remote procedure calls via HTTP. It uses XML as the encoding for the request. See examples.   SmugMug highly recommends using REST instead, and is considering deprecating XML-RPC.

You need an API Key to use the API.

There are a few drawbacks, especially since we deal with binary data, but there are some workarounds, and in general, it provides and easy way to get data out of SmugMug, and perhaps more importantly, put data in.

This API is in the "work in progress" stage, as you can tell by it's presence in our hacks section, but there's been an application using it since November 2003, so it's been in production for awhile. There are now other applications and scripts using the API.

If you come up with something clever and cool, we'd love to hear about it and add a link on this page to your project.

The URL to use for POSTing your XML-RPC calls is http[s]://api.SmugMug.com/hack/xmlrpc/ for everything BUT uploads, which should go to http://upload.SmugMug.com/hack/xmlrpc/. If you run into problems, make sure you're POSTing to the right address!

Here's how a typical operation works:

• login (using SmugMug.login.withPassword, SmugMug.login.withHash, or SmugMug.login.anonymously)
• store the resulting SessionID temporarily for re-use with other methods. A Session lasts for 6 hours of inactivity.
• call other methods as needed
• SmugMug.logout (which destroys your Session)

Finally, this API (and the others) are continously expanding. Please contact us if we're missing a method you'd like to see.

NOTE: Everything in the hacks section is provided "as-is" unless you specifically have a contract with SmugMug. They're not supported, endorsed, or guaranteed in any way. We'd love to fully support the API and other goodies with SmugMug's AAA customer service, but we're just not there yet. Soon, we hope.