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

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

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.

Solution

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.