Is there a way using YouTube's v3 API to determine if a video (by ID) is a "short" or a regular video?

Question

I'm trying to determine if a video is uploaded as a "short" or a regular/long-form video via the v3 data API.

I'm checking out the video info via:

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/videos?key=[API_KEY]&id=[VIDEO_ID]&part=snippet

But nothing returned seems to indicate to me one way or the other.

Answer 1

By using the following appproach, you could determine whether a video is a #short video or not.

What you will need is:

• The VIDEO_ID you want to check if is a #short video.
• The CHANNEL_ID of the video's owner.

The approach is as follows:

• Make a request to playlistItems.list by passing the #shorts playlists¹ in the playlistId parameter.
• In the said request, add in the videoId parameter the VIDEO_ID you want to test.

This is an example:

• Channel_ID: UCbqEsRhXQI5KWYVr8mSWWWw
• #Shorts Playlist_ID: UUSHbqEsRhXQI5KWYVr8mSWWWw <= This is the same CHANNEL_ID, but after replacing the first two characters from the CHANNEL_ID - in this case, the UC characters to UUSH at the beginning - Notice the highlighted characters.
• Video_ID: 07pPUAjEmzA

Request:

GET https://youtube.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/playlistItems?part=id,snippet,contentDetails&maxResults=10&playlistId=UUSHbqEsRhXQI5KWYVr8mSWWWw&videoId=07pPUAjEmzA&fields=items(contentDetails/videoId,id,snippet/title),kind,nextPageToken,pageInfo,prevPageToken,tokenPagination&key=[YOUR_API_KEY] HTTP/1.1

Authorization: Bearer [YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN]
Accept: application/json

Result:

{
  "kind": "youtube#playlistItemListResponse",
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "VVVTSGJxRXNSaFhRSTVLV1lWcjhtU1dXV3cuMDdwUFVBakVtekE",
      "snippet": {
        "title": "Batman in Blender for 1h and 30 min #blender #speedsculpt #speedsculpting #digitalart"
      },
      "contentDetails": {
        "videoId": "07pPUAjEmzA"
      }
    }
  ],
  "pageInfo": {
    "totalResults": 1,
    "resultsPerPage": 10
  }
}

The response confirms the said videoId 07pPUAjEmzA is indeed a #shorts video.

You can try this request in the API explorer demo.

---

By changing the value of the videoId parameter to LyvOV84kJmU and making the request again, the response will be - empty:

{
  "kind": "youtube#playlistItemListResponse",
  "items": [],
  "pageInfo": {
    "totalResults": 0,
    "resultsPerPage": 10
  }
}

In this case it means, the video, is NOT a #shorts video - despite the fact the video LyvOV84kJmU is from the channel UCbqEsRhXQI5KWYVr8mSWWWw.

---

¹ all credits to the poster of the answer for his amazing discovery. I assume the Shorts playlists is automatically created when the YouTube channel owner uploads a #short video - if you or anyone knows the real cause(s) for the generation of a playlist with only #shorts videos, please, let us know.

² I've tested with auto-generated YouTube channels and it seems this does not work.