How to Reveal a Weibo Image’s Publisher Using Its URL

The article presents a practical technique for identifying the Weibo user who posted a given image by analyzing the image's URL, which contains the user’s UID in hexadecimal form.

Weibo stores user metadata in the image URL; the domain indicates the image server, the size code denotes the thumbnail version, and the filename includes an 8‑character hexadecimal string that represents the UID.

Example URL:

https://wx4.sinaimg.cn/orj360/4242e8adgy1hlugictxquj235s2pknpe.jpg

Steps to extract the UID:

Open the image in a new browser tab and copy its URL.

Split the URL into three parts:

Domain: wx4.sinaimg.cn – the image storage server (other subdomains like wx1, wx2, wx3 also exist).

Size code: orj360 – indicates a thumbnail; the original size uses mw690.

Filename: 4242e8adgy1hlugictxquj235s2pknpe.jpg – the first 8 characters ( 4242e8ad) are the UID in hexadecimal, followed by the rest of the filename.

The hexadecimal UID 4242e8ad converts to the decimal UID 1111681197, which matches the UID of the example user “来去之间”.

If a user has a custom domain and the UID is not directly visible, hovering over the “Follow” or “Fans” button reveals a URL with the numeric UID in the browser’s status bar.

Finally, compare the extracted UID with the UID displayed on the user’s profile page to confirm correctness.