YouTube Shorts contains valuable data — shorts title, channel, view count, duration, 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 500 credits/month — no credit card required)
Step 1: Install Dependencies
Install reqwest to make HTTP requests:
cargo add reqwest serde 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 shorts title, channel, view count, and more.
use reqwest::Client;
use serde_json::{json, Value};
#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
let api_key = "your_scavio_api_key";
let client = Client::new();
let response = client
.post("https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search")
.header("x-api-key", api_key)
.json(&json!({ "query": query }))
.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:
{
"search_metadata": { "status": "success" },
"shorts_results": [
{
"position": 1,
"title": "I built an AI coding agent in 60 seconds",
"link": "https://youtube.com/shorts/abc123",
"channel": "Devtools Daily",
"views": 1240000,
"duration": "0:58",
"thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/abc123/default.jpg"
}
]
}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;
/// Scrape YouTube Shorts search results using Scavio API.
/// Returns structured JSON with shorts title, channel, view count, and more.
async fn search_youtube_shorts(query: &str) -> Result<Value, Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
let api_key = env::var("SCAVIO_API_KEY")?;
let client = Client::new();
let response = client
.post("https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search")
.header("x-api-key", &api_key)
.json(&json!({ "query": query }))
.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 results = search_youtube_shorts("ai coding agent shorts").await?;
println!("{}", serde_json::to_string_pretty(&results)?);
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. 500 credits/month with no credit card required. Each search costs 1 credit.