Binary files

Point the API at any binary file under 2MB (images, PDFs, audio, etc.) and it returns a JSON object containing a base64_string key with the file encoded as a data URI.

Endpoint

GET https://scrape.shifter.io/v1?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&url=<BINARY_FILE_URL>&binary_response=1

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
api_key	string	yes	Your Web Scraping API key
url	string	yes	URL of the binary file to fetch.
binary_response	integer	no	Set to 1 to force the binary response format.

Caution

Binary files larger than 2MB will fail. Split or host the asset elsewhere if you need larger payloads.

Example request

curl

curl "https://scrape.shifter.io/v1?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&url=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F2%2F2f%2FGoogle_2015_logo.svg%2F440px-Google_2015_logo.svg.png"

Python

import requests

r = requests.get("https://scrape.shifter.io/v1", params={
    "api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
    "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Google_2015_logo.svg/440px-Google_2015_logo.svg.png",
    "binary_response": 1,
})
print(r.json()["base64_string"][:80])

Node.js

import fetch from 'node-fetch';

const url = 'https://scrape.shifter.io/v1?' + new URLSearchParams({
  api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
  url: 'https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Google_2015_logo.svg/440px-Google_2015_logo.svg.png',
  binary_response: '1',
});
const res = await fetch(url);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data.base64_string.slice(0, 80));

Example response

{
  "base64_string": "data:image/webp;base64,UklGRlobAABXRUJQVlA4TE4bAAA..."
}

See also

• Web Scraping API - endpoint hub
• Basic request