How to Get Historical Stock Data from Yahoo Finance (Without Paying for an API Key)

Yahoo Finance is one of the last free sources for historical stock price data. Most alternatives (Alpha Vantage, Polygon, IEX) either rate-limit aggressively on free tiers or charge hundreds per month for real coverage. The catch: Yahoo doesn't officially publish an API anymore. But the v8 chart endpoint that powers their website still works, returns clean JSON, and covers decades of historical data. I've been pulling data from it for a while and want to document what actually works in 2026. What you can get The v8 chart API returns: Historical OHLCV data (open, high, low, close, volume) going back to IPO for most tickers Adjusted close prices accounting for splits and dividends Dividend and stock split history Multiple intervals : 1m, 5m, 15m, 1h, 1d, 1wk, 1mo Pre/post market data for intraday intervals This covers US stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, indices, crypto, and many international exchanges. The v8 chart endpoint GET https://query1.finance.yahoo.com/v8/finance/chart/AAPL?range=1y&