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 Rust and the Scavio API. By the end, you will have a working Rust script that fetches real-time YouTube Shorts data and parses the results.
Prerequisites
- Rust installed on your machine
- A Scavio API key (free tier includes 50 credits on signup -- no credit card required)
Step 1: Install Dependencies
Install reqwest to make HTTP requests:
cargo add reqwest serde_json tokio --features reqwest/json,tokio/fullStep 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.
use reqwest::Client;
use serde_json::{json, Value};
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
let api_key = "sk_live_your_key";
let search = "ai coding agent shorts";
let client = Client::new();
let response = client
.post("https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/youtube/shorts")
.header("Authorization", format!("Bearer {}", api_key))
.json(&json!({ "search": search }))
.send()
.await?;
let data: Value = response.json().await?;
println!("{}", serde_json::to_string_pretty(&data)?);
Ok(())
}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 Rust code can access any field directly.
Step 4: Full Working Example
Here is a complete, runnable Rust script that searches YouTube Shorts and prints the results:
use reqwest::Client;
use serde_json::{json, Value};
use std::env;
/// 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.
const API_URL: &str = "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/youtube/shorts";
async fn search_youtube_shorts(search: &str) -> Result<Value, Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
let api_key = env::var("SCAVIO_API_KEY")?;
let client = Client::new();
let response = client
.post(API_URL)
.header("Authorization", format!("Bearer {}", api_key))
.json(&json!({ "search": search }))
.send()
.await?;
if !response.status().is_success() {
return Err(format!("Scavio API error: {}", response.status()).into());
}
Ok(response.json().await?)
}
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
let data = search_youtube_shorts("ai coding agent shorts").await?;
println!("{}", serde_json::to_string_pretty(&data)?);
Ok(())
}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.