NetShort Scraper - Short-Drama Catalog, Episodes & Reviews

NetShort Scraper turns NetShort, the vertical short-drama streaming catalog, into a clean data API. Walk the full browse catalog, follow category pages, read the homepage discovery rails with positions, or paste series links - and get structured records with synopses, like and follow counters, categories, episode lists with lock flags, publish dates and the site's server-rendered reviews - then export to JSON, CSV or Excel, or pull the results straight into your app through the API.

Why This Scraper?

• Four ways in. Walk the full browse catalog page by page, follow selected categories (resolved live), read the homepage discovery rails with rail name and position, or paste your own series links.
• Reviews included. The site publishes reader reviews on every series; collect them with one toggle - one review unit per series that has them.
• Sixteen site languages. The same story is published per locale with its own series id; collect one language or all of them, with localized titles, synopses and slugs.
• Full episode lists. Every enriched record carries its episode list (id, number, lock flag, thumbnail) where the site embeds it, plus the all-episodes link.
• Trending rails with rank. The homepage rails come back with the rail name and the exact position of every series in it.
• Built for schedules. Incremental mode returns only new and changed titles on recurring runs, and a refused run fails loudly instead of returning an empty dataset.
• Honest failures. An unknown category or genre value is named in the error; a refused run never reads as an empty catalog.

Use Cases

• Who: short-drama analysts - track like and follow counters, episode counts and trending positions across the NetShort catalog on a schedule.
• Who: content researchers - collect synopses, categories and reader reviews for market studies.
• Who: localization teams - compare per-locale series ids and availability across 16 site languages.

Data You Get

Sample shape: one title record, from a live record.

Field	Example
platform	NetShort
id	2108386528632586241
title	The Mafia Bosses' Max-Level Nanny
description	After a crash, top-student Sophia is reborn into a mafia world…
likes	51000
likesDisplay	51.0K
follows	595800
followsDisplay	595.8K
genres	[{"name": "Underdog Rise", "id": "1984208314792402946"}]
episodes	30
episodeList	[{"episodeNumber": 1, "locked": false, "thumbnail": "…"}]
reviews	[{"reviewTitle": "High Stakes Parenting", "reviewContent": "…"}]
section / rank	Trending Now / 3 (trending mode)
url	https://netshort.com/episode/the-mafia-bosses-max-level-nanny-2108386528632586241
changeType	NEW

How to Use

1. Pick a mode: Catalog walks the full browse catalog; Category walks selected category pages (values resolve against the live index); Trending reads the homepage rails; URLs scrapes only the links you paste.
2. Set Max items for the run cap (20 by default; 0 runs until the walk ends naturally) and Site language for the localized catalog.
3. Keep Fetch detail pages on to attach the counters, episode list, locales and publish date; keep Fetch reviews on to collect the full review set (one review unit per series that has reviews).
4. Run the actor and export the dataset, or select an MCP connector to send records into your apps.

Walk the catalog:

{"mode": "catalog", "maxItems": 30}

Trending rails with positions:

{"mode": "trending", "fetchDetails": false, "maxItems": 40}

Paste series links:

{"mode": "urls", "listingUrls": ["https://netshort.com/episode/the-mafia-bosses-max-level-nanny-2108386528632586241"], "maxItems": 5}

Watch the catalog on a schedule:

{"mode": "catalog", "incrementalMode": true, "stateKey": "ns-watch", "maxItems": 0}

Run it from your code

Run it from Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("abotapi/netshort-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "catalog",
    "maxItems": 5,
})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

Run it from JavaScript:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('abotapi/netshort-scraper').call({
  mode: 'catalog', maxItems: 5,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

Tips

• The shared datacenter connection serves this catalog reliably; residential proxies are recommended for the most reliable long runs.
• The catalog counters are shown as display strings (595.8K); the actor ships both the verbatim display value and the parsed approximation.
• Series ids differ per site language; the walked locale's id is the row identity, and the episode page carries the per-locale link map.
• Reviews are the site's own public reader reviews; they are collected from the server-rendered review sections, capped by Max reviews per series.

Send results into your apps (MCP connectors)

Optionally send records into the apps you already use through MCP connectors: set MCP connectors (for example a Notion database) and cap the export with Max records to connectors. The export is a gated side channel: it never changes the dataset.

Field	What it does
mcpConnectors	Connector ids to export to (empty = no export).
notionParentPageUrl	URL or id of the Notion parent page (required for the Notion connector).
maxNotifyListings	Cap on records written to each connector per run.

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	catalog	Catalog walk, category walks, homepage trending rails, or pasted links.
categories	array	-	Which categories to walk in category mode - multi-select from the site's own list (empty = all).
language	string	en	Which localized catalog to read (16 site languages).
listingUrls	array	-	Series, category, browse-catalog, all-episodes or reviews links; a category id (netshort.com/
maxItems	integer	20	The single cap on the run: stop after this many records (0 = no limit).
maxPages	integer	0	Cap on pages walked per scope (0 = no page cap).
fetchDetails	boolean	true	Read each series' episode page for counters, episode list, locales and publish date.
fetchReviews	boolean	true	Also read each series' reviews page for the full review set.
maxReviews	integer	20	Cap on reviews carried per series record (0 skips reviews).
proxy	object	datacenter	Apify proxies; residential recommended for the most reliable long runs.
resumeFromRunId	string	-	Paste a previous run ID to continue a large crawl without returning or charging for records already collected there.
incrementalMode	boolean	false	Track changes across scheduled runs; suppress and never bill unchanged records.
stateKey	string	-	Optional name for the incremental baseline.
emitUnchanged	boolean	false	Also return unchanged records, marked and billed.
emitExpired	boolean	false	Also return disappeared records, marked and billed.
ignoreFieldsForChanges	array	-	Extra top-level fields excluded from change detection.
mcpConnectors	array	-	Connector ids to export to (empty = no export).
notionParentPageUrl	string	-	URL or id of the Notion parent page (required for the Notion connector).
maxNotifyListings	integer	50	Cap on records written to each connector per run.

Output Example

Sample shape: one series record, from a live record.

Live record: The Mafia Bosses' Max-Level Nanny

{
  "platform": "NetShort",
  "id": "2108386528632586241",
  "title": "The Mafia Bosses' Max-Level Nanny",
  "likesDisplay": "51.0K",
  "followsDisplay": "595.8K",
  "episodes": 30,
  "genres": [{"name": "Underdog Rise", "id": "1984208314792402946"}],
  "url": "https://netshort.com/episode/the-mafia-bosses-max-level-nanny-2108386528632586241"
}

Plan Requirement

This actor is pay per event: a start fee per run, a per-record fee for every series returned, a detail surcharge for each series whose page was read for full enrichment, and one review unit for each series that has reviews. Records shipped as catalog cards without the detail read carry no detail or review surcharge. Exact prices are on the actor's Pricing tab.

FAQ

How much does it cost?

The actor is pay per event: a start fee per run, a per-record fee for every title returned, and a detail surcharge per enriched title. Max items caps the records a run returns, so it also caps the bill. Exact prices are on the actor's Pricing tab.

Is it legal to scrape NetShort?

The actor reads the public catalog pages of the NetShort website: the same series, episodes, reviews and metadata any visitor sees without an account. It does not access accounts, streaming or checkout. You are responsible for using the data in line with the site's terms of use, privacy law such as GDPR or CCPA, and applicable regulations; personal data of identifiable individuals requires a lawful basis.

Does it scrape reviews?

Yes. NetShort publishes reader reviews on each series' pages; the actor collects them (title and text) when Fetch reviews is on, capped by Max reviews per series. There is no rating or star surface on the web catalog, so none is collected.

Can I get only new or changed titles on a schedule?

Yes. Turn on Incremental mode and schedule the actor. The first run returns everything matching as NEW; later runs return only NEW and UPDATED records. Episode-count growth and description changes count as changes; view and follow counter ticks and trending positions are excluded as noise by default. Use State key to keep a monitoring campaign stable, and Emit unchanged or Emit expired only if you also want those rows (they return and bill extra rows).

Why did my run fail instead of returning an empty dataset?

A run that never got a single readable answer fails loudly with a connection message instead of reporting an empty catalog; an unknown category value is named in the error rather than silently skipped.

Can I use it with AI agents or MCP?

Yes. Every record is plain JSON over the dataset API, and the MCP connector export sends rows straight into tools like Notion. Point an agent at the dataset items endpoint with the input above.

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