Shutterstock API
Number of APIs: 103
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- Blindfold challenge: Picking a random API (Shutterstock)
- Joyce tests Arlemi's API saavy with a randomly-selected API from the Qodex API Network. Come help Arlemi navigate API documentation, authorization, and a surprise challenge. This week is the Shutterstock API.
- [Shutterstock public workspace]
Getting Started
The Shutterstock API provides access to Shutterstock's library of media, as well as information about customers' accounts and the contributors that provide the media. It allows customer platforms to search for media, view information and previews for the media, and license and download media.
- Create an application at https://www.shutterstock.com/account/developers/apps. To license media, you also need a paid subscription, but the API provides a free option for you to try out the API without licensing media. For information about applications and subscriptions, see Subscriptions in the API reference.
- Authenticate to the API to get a token. You can get a token from the application page, or you can use the methods described in Authentication in the API reference.
Now you're ready to make your first API request.
Basic API requests
Let's search Shutterstock's catalog of images:
- In the Qodex Collections tab, open the Shutterstock API collection dropdown.
- In the collection, click Images > Search > Search for images. This request uses the API
GET /v2/images/search
endpoint. - Click the Authorization tab of the request.
- In the Type dropdown, select OAuth 2.0.
- Enter your Shutterstock access token in the Access Token box.
- Click the Params tab of the request.
- In the
query
parameter, type a search term, such asflowers.
- Click Send.
The API response contains 20 images, including URLs to thumbnails. To customize your search, check out the full list of parameters on the GET /v2/images/search
endpoint.
Other resources
For full documentation, check out our api-reference.
To learn more about all of the services that we offer to developers, head over to our developer portal.
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Images-Images - Get the details of featured image collections GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/images/collections/featured/:id
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Editorial Images-Editorial_images - (Deprecated) Search editorial content GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/editorial/search?country=<country-code-3>
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Editorial Images-Editorial_images - (Deprecated) List editorial categories GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/editorial/categories
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Videos-Videos - Get suggestions for a search term GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/videos/search/suggestions?query=<string>
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Images-Images - List image licenses GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/images/licenses
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Images-Images - Get details about images GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/images/:id
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Videos-Videos - List videos GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/videos?id=<string>
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Images-Images - Search for images GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/images/search?query=otters
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Images-Images - Get suggestions for a search term GET {{baseUrl}}/v2/images/search/suggestions?query=<string>
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Images-Images - Get keywords from text POST {{baseUrl}}/v2/images/search/suggestions