YouTube Trending Shorts API
YouTube Shorts recommendation sequence — fixed window per call (no cursor), not a global chart.
Served from YouTube's reel_watch_sequence (Shorts recommendation feed). This is not a global trending ranking: results are session-dependent, may include older or re-uploaded Shorts, and can vary between calls. Trending returns a fixed window up to limit — there is no hasMore/nextCursor (unlike channel-videos / channel-shorts / search). Response source is always reel_watch_sequence on the native path. Each row is player-enriched with nested channel{id,url,title,handle} (https + percent-decoded @handle), exact viewCount + viewCountText + viewCountIsApproximate, durationSeconds + durationFormatted, publishedAt/genre when microformat exposes them, and commentCount with commentCountIsApproximate. Flat aliases (channelId/channelUrl/viewCountInt/…) and empty badges/channel.thumbnail are omitted. Optional q seeds the sequence from a topic Short only — values like trending/shorts are ignored (not echoed as query). Flat 2 credits.
Request
- Base URL: https://api.captapi.com
- URL: https://api.captapi.com/v1/youtube/trending-shorts
- Auth: one of:
- HTTP bearer
- API key in header X-API-Key
Query parameters
Optional topic seed for the Shorts recommendation sequence. Omit (or pass trending/shorts) for the default reel feed — not a keyword search.
Max items to return (default 20, max 100). Returns a single window; use limit to size it. No cursor. Flat 2 credits per call.
Set true to serve from the 24h response cache (0 credits on hit). Default false — always fetch fresh.
Response
Success. The data object for this endpoint.
Changes
No recorded changes to this operation across all 3 revisions of this API.