Google Shorts Scraper

Apify Actor that scrapes short-form video results from Google Search across all platforms — YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, and more.

What it does

This scraper searches Google Videos for short-form video content and extracts structured data from the results. Unlike scrapers that only target YouTube, this one captures videos from every platform that appears in Google's video search results.

Supported platforms

• YouTube (Shorts & regular videos)
• TikTok
• Instagram (Reels)
• Facebook (Reels & short clips)
• Twitter / X
• Reddit
• Snapchat
• Vimeo
• Dailymotion
• Any other video source Google returns

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
query	string	"funny cats"	Search term to find short-form videos
maxItems	integer	50	Maximum number of results (1–500)
gl	string	"us"	Two-letter country code for localized results (e.g. us, in, uk)
hl	string	"en"	Two-letter language code (e.g. en, es, de)
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Residential	Proxy settings (residential recommended)

Example input

{
    "query": "funny cats",
    "maxItems": 50,
    "gl": "us",
    "hl": "en"
}

Output

Each result in the dataset contains the following fields:

Field	Type	Description
position	integer	Result position on the page
title	string	Video title
link	string	Direct URL to the video
platform	string	Source platform (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc.)
isShort	boolean	Whether the URL is a recognized short-form format (/shorts/, /reel/, TikTok, etc.)
channel	string	Creator or channel name
views	string	View count string (e.g. "1.2M views")
duration	string	Video duration (e.g. "0:59")
thumbnail	string	Thumbnail image URL
searchQuery	string	The original search query
searchUrl	string	Google search URL used
scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp of when the result was scraped

Example output

{
    "position": 1,
    "title": "Funny Cat Fails Compilation #shorts",
    "link": "https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AG5b_t5QN3g",
    "platform": "YouTube",
    "isShort": true,
    "channel": "Funny Animals",
    "views": "2.3M views",
    "duration": "0:59",
    "thumbnail": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AG5b_t5QN3g/hq720.jpg",
    "searchQuery": "funny cats",
    "searchUrl": "https://www.google.com/search?q=funny+cats+short+videos&tbm=vid&start=0&gl=us&hl=en",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-02-28T09:04:57.409Z"
}

{
    "position": 5,
    "title": "When your cat discovers the camera 😂",
    "link": "https://www.tiktok.com/@funnyanimals/video/7234567890",
    "platform": "TikTok",
    "isShort": true,
    "channel": "funnyanimals",
    "views": "450K views",
    "duration": "0:15",
    "thumbnail": "https://p16-sign.tiktokcdn.com/obj/image.jpg",
    "searchQuery": "funny cats",
    "searchUrl": "https://www.google.com/search?q=funny+cats+short+videos&tbm=vid&start=0&gl=us&hl=en",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-02-28T09:04:58.123Z"
}

Features

• Scrapes short-form videos from all platforms, not just YouTube
• Automatic platform detection and short-form video identification
• Handles Google consent pages and CAPTCHA detection
• Session rotation and browser fingerprint randomization
• Parallel tab scraping for fast pagination
• Configurable country and language targeting
• Residential proxy support for reliable access