ShortMax Scraper - Short-Drama Catalog, Trending & Episodes

ShortMax Scraper turns ShortMax, the vertical short-drama streaming catalog, into a clean data API. Walk the full drama catalog, follow category or genre pages, read the homepage trending rails with positions, or paste drama links - and get structured records with descriptions, creators, view and follow counters, the two genre taxonomies and full episode lists - then export to JSON, CSV or Excel, or pull the results straight into your app through the API.

Why This Scraper?

• Five ways in. Walk the full catalog page by page, follow selected categories or genres (two independent, live-resolved taxonomies), read the homepage trending rails with rail name and position, or paste your own drama links.
• Nineteen site languages. The same numeric title id across every localized catalog - collect one language or all of them, with localized titles, synopses and slugs.
• Full episode lists. Every enriched record carries its episode list (number + URL) plus the all-episodes link.
• Trending rails with rank. The homepage rails come back with the rail name and the exact position of every title 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 view and follow counters, episode counts and trending positions across the ShortMax catalog on a schedule.
• Who: content researchers - collect descriptions, creators and both genre taxonomies for market studies.
• Who: localization teams - compare the same title id across 19 site languages.

Data You Get

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

Field	Example
platform	ShortMax
id	43438
title	The Day I Chose His Roommate
description	I can see loyalty scores above everyone's heads…
creator	Elisa
views	238000
viewsDisplay	238K
follows	79500
followsDisplay	79.5K
genres	[{"name": "Modern", "id": "200052"}, …]
category	{"name": "Fantasy", "id": "200003"}
episodes	25
episodeList	[{"episodeNumber": 1, "episodeUrl": "…"}]
section / rank	Most Popular 🔥 / 3 (trending mode)
url	https://www.shorttv.live/drama/the-day-i-chose-his-roommate-43438
changeType	NEW

How to Use

1. Pick a mode: Catalog walks the full drama catalog; Category and Genre walk selected pages of the two label taxonomies (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 description, creator, counters, tag chips and episode list to every record.
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 drama links:

{"mode": "urls", "listingUrls": ["https://www.shorttv.live/drama/the-day-i-chose-his-roommate-43438"], "maxItems": 5}

Watch the catalog on a schedule:

{"mode": "catalog", "incrementalMode": true, "stateKey": "sm-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/shortmax-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/shortmax-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 (238K); the actor ships both the verbatim display value and the parsed approximation.
• ShortMax publishes no reviews, ratings or user comments on any web or app surface; titles, episodes, counters and taxonomies are the catalog's full public depth.

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, genre walks, homepage trending rails, or pasted links.
categories	array	-	Category slugs, ids or names for category mode (resolved live; empty = all).
genres	array	-	Genre slugs, ids or names for genre mode (resolved live; empty = all).
language	string	en	Which localized catalog to read (19 site languages).
listingUrls	array	-	Drama, episode, category, genre or catalog links (urls mode).
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 drama page for description, creator, counters, tags and the episode list.
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 title record, from a live record.

Live record: The Day I Chose His Roommate

{
  "platform": "ShortMax",
  "id": "43438",
  "title": "The Day I Chose His Roommate",
  "creator": "Elisa",
  "viewsDisplay": "238K",
  "followsDisplay": "79.5K",
  "episodes": 25,
  "genres": [{"name": "Modern", "id": "200052"}, {"name": "Fantasy", "id": "200070"}],
  "url": "https://www.shorttv.live/drama/the-day-i-chose-his-roommate-43438"
}

Plan Requirement

This actor is pay per event: a start fee per run, a per-record fee for every title returned, and a detail surcharge for each title whose page was read for full enrichment. Titles shipped as catalog cards without the detail read carry no detail 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 ShortMax?

The actor reads the public catalog pages of the ShortMax website: the same titles, episodes 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 comments or reviews?

No. ShortMax publishes no review, comment or rating surface on its website or in its app (verified October 2026 across the web pages, the community section and the mobile app's full API surface), so there is nothing to collect. Titles, episodes, counters and taxonomies are the catalog's full public depth.

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 or genre 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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