Shutterstock Python API Docs | dltHub

Shutterstock is a media library API that provides search, preview, licensing, and download access to images, videos, and audio, plus account and contributor information. The REST API base URL is https://api.shutterstock.com and All requests require authentication via HTTP Basic (client_id:client_secret) or OAuth Bearer tokens..

dlt is an open-source Python library that handles authentication, pagination, and schema evolution automatically. dlthub provides AI context files that enable code assistants to generate production-ready pipelines. Install with uv pip install "dlt[workspace]" and start loading Shutterstock data in under 10 minutes.

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What data can I load from Shutterstock?

Here are some of the endpoints you can load from Shutterstock:

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How do I authenticate with the Shutterstock API?

The API accepts HTTP Basic authentication (client_id as username, client_secret as password) for many public endpoints and OAuth 2.0 Bearer tokens for scoped endpoints; every request must also include a User-Agent header.

1. Get your credentials

1. Create or sign in to a Shutterstock account. 2) Navigate to Developers → Applications (https://www.shutterstock.com/account/developers/apps). 3) Click “Create a new app”. 4) Record the generated Consumer Key (client_id) and Consumer Secret (client_secret). 5) For OAuth, implement the OAuth 2.0 authorization code flow to exchange the client credentials for an access token.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

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[sources.shutterstock_source]
api_key = "your_client_id_here"
api_secret = "your_client_secret_here"
token = "your_oauth_bearer_token_here"

dlt reads this automatically at runtime — never hardcode tokens in your pipeline script. For production environments, see setting up credentials with dlt for environment variable and vault-based options.

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How do I set up and run the pipeline?

Set up a virtual environment and install dlt:

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uv venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install "dlt[workspace]"

1. Install the dlt AI Workbench:

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dlt ai init --agent <your-agent> # <agent>: claude | cursor | codex

This installs project rules, a secrets management skill, appropriate ignore files, and configures the dlt MCP server for your agent. Learn more →

2. Install the rest-api-pipeline toolkit:

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dlt ai toolkit rest-api-pipeline install

This loads the skills and context about dlt the agent uses to build the pipeline iteratively, efficiently, and safely. The agent uses MCP tools to inspect credentials — it never needs to read your secrets.toml directly. Learn more →

3. Start LLM-assisted coding:

Use /find-source to load data from the Shutterstock API into DuckDB.

The rest-api-pipeline toolkit takes over from here — it reads relevant API documentation, presents you with options for which endpoints to load, and follows a structured workflow to scaffold, debug, and validate the pipeline step by step.

4. Run the pipeline:

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python shutterstock_pipeline.py

If everything is configured correctly, you'll see output like this:

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Pipeline shutterstock_pipeline load step completed in 0.26 seconds
1 load package(s) were loaded to destination duckdb and into dataset shutterstock_data
The duckdb destination used duckdb:/shutterstock.duckdb location to store data
Load package 1749667187.541553 is LOADED and contains no failed jobs

Inspect your pipeline and data:

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dlt pipeline shutterstock_pipeline show

This opens the Pipeline Dashboard where you can verify pipeline state, load metrics, schema (tables, columns, types), and query the loaded data directly.

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Python pipeline example

This example loads images_search and videos_search from the Shutterstock API into DuckDB. It mirrors the endpoint and data selector configuration from the table above:

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import dlt
from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources

@dlt.source
def shutterstock_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://api.shutterstock.com",
            "auth": {
                "type": "http_basic",
                "token": api_key,
            },
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "images_search", "endpoint": {"path": "v2/images/search", "data_selector": "data"}},
            {"name": "videos_search", "endpoint": {"path": "v2/videos/search", "data_selector": "data"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def get_data() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="shutterstock_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="shutterstock_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(shutterstock_source())
    print(load_info)

To add more endpoints, append entries from the resource table to the "resources" list using the same name, path, and data_selector pattern.

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How do I query the loaded data?

Once the pipeline runs, dlt creates one table per resource. You can query with Python or SQL.

Python (pandas DataFrame):

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("shutterstock_pipeline").dataset()
sessions_df = data.images_search.df()
print(sessions_df.head())

SQL (DuckDB example):

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SELECT * FROM shutterstock_data.images_search LIMIT 10;

In a marimo or Jupyter notebook:

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("shutterstock_pipeline").dataset()
data.images_search.df().head()

See how to explore your data in marimo Notebooks and how to query your data in Python with dataset.

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What destinations can I load Shutterstock data to?

dlt supports loading into any of these destinations — only the destination parameter changes:

Change the destination in dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. See the full destinations list.

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Troubleshooting

Authentication failures

401 Unauthorized occurs when no valid OAuth Bearer token or Basic auth credentials are provided. Ensure the Authorization header is set correctly (Bearer or Basic with client_id:client_secret) and include a User-Agent header.

Rate limiting and paging

Search endpoints paginate results using page and per_page parameters. The per_page maximum varies by endpoint (up to 500). Respect pagination limits to avoid throttling.

Licensing errors

Licensing endpoints may return a 200 response with error details inside the body, e.g., { "data": [{ "image_id": "142...", "error": "Media unavailable" }], "errors": [...] }. Inspect the response payload for per‑item error messages.

Common HTTP errors

• 400 Bad Request – validation errors.
• 401 Unauthorized – missing or invalid authentication.
• 403 Forbidden – insufficient scopes.
• 404 Not Found – invalid resource identifier.
• 500 Internal Server Error – server‑side issues.

Ensure that the API key is valid to avoid 401 Unauthorized errors. Also, verify endpoint paths and parameters to avoid 404 Not Found errors.

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Next steps

Continue your data engineering journey with the other toolkits of the dltHub AI Workbench:

• data-exploration — Build custom notebooks, charts, and dashboards for deeper analysis with marimo notebooks.
• dlthub-runtime — Deploy, schedule, and monitor your pipeline in production.

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dlt ai toolkit data-exploration install
dlt ai toolkit dlthub-runtime install

• How to deploy a pipeline
• How to explore your data in marimo Notebooks
• How to query your data in Python with dataset
• Join the dlt community on Slack