How to Scrape YouTube Shorts with cURL

YouTube Shorts contains valuable data -- short video results, video ids, view counts, published time, and more. Scraping this data directly means dealing with anti-bot detection, CAPTCHAs, IP rotation, and constantly breaking selectors. The Scavio API handles all of that and returns clean, structured JSON from a single POST request.

This tutorial shows you how to scrape YouTube Shorts using cURL and the Scavio API. By the end, you will have a working cURL script that fetches real-time YouTube Shorts data and parses the results.

Prerequisites

• A terminal with cURL installed (pre-installed on macOS, Linux, and Windows 10+)
• A Scavio API key (free tier includes 50 credits on signup -- no credit card required)

Step 1: Install Dependencies

curl is built into cURL, so there is nothing to install.

# cURL is pre-installed on macOS, Linux, and Windows 10+

Step 2: Make Your First YouTube Shorts Search

Send a POST request to the Scavio YouTube Shorts API endpoint with your query. The API returns structured JSON with short video results, video ids, view counts, and more.

# Shorts search takes search (not query). channel.name is often empty on Shorts rows -
# resolve it with POST /api/v1/youtube/video when you need it.
curl -X POST "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/youtube/shorts" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"search":"ai coding agent shorts"}'

Step 3: Example Response

The API returns structured JSON. Here is an example response for a YouTube Shorts search:

{
  "data": {
    "results": [
      {
        "video_id": "_P63NrBN49U",
        "title": "My go to Full Body Workout. No equipment. Anywhere",
        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_P63NrBN49U",
        "duration_text": null,
        "view_count": 64000000,
        "published_time": "1 year ago",
        "channel": { "id": null, "name": "", "url": null }
      }
    ],
    "next_cursor": "GhkKF...",
    "has_more": true
  },
  "response_time": 2290,
  "credits_used": 2,
  "credits_remaining": 4809
}

Every field is structured and typed -- no HTML parsing, no CSS selectors, no regex extraction. Your cURL code can access any field directly.

Step 4: Full Working Example

Here is a complete, runnable cURL script that searches YouTube Shorts and prints the results:

#!/bin/bash
# Search YouTube Shorts data with the Scavio API.
# POST /api/v1/youtube/shorts - rows come back under data.results.
# Shorts search takes search (not query). channel.name is often empty on Shorts rows -
# resolve it with POST /api/v1/youtube/video when you need it.

SCAVIO_API_KEY="${SCAVIO_API_KEY:-sk_live_your_key}"
INPUT="${1:-ai coding agent shorts}"

curl -s -X POST "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/youtube/shorts" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCAVIO_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"search\":\"$INPUT\"}" | python3 -m json.tool

Why Use Scavio Instead of Scraping YouTube Shorts Directly?

• No proxy management. Direct scraping requires rotating proxies to avoid IP bans. Scavio handles all of this server-side.
• No CAPTCHA solving. YouTube Shorts aggressively blocks automated requests. Scavio returns clean data every time.
• Structured JSON output. No HTML parsing or CSS selector maintenance. Get typed, consistent data from every request.
• Multi-platform in one API. Search Google, Amazon, YouTube, and Walmart from the same API key with the same authentication pattern.
• Free tier included. 50 credits on signup with no credit card required. Each search costs 1 credit.