ShortShorts.ai helps you repurpose your own long-form videos into Shorts. This page explains exactly how we access your YouTube data, what we do with it, and what we never do.
We only process videos you own and explicitly authorise. The original file is permanently deleted immediately after your Shorts are generated. We never store, share, or use your videos for any other purpose.
1.You authorise via Google OAuth
You connect your YouTube channel using Google's official OAuth 2.0 flow. We request only the scopes we need: read access to your channel/playlists, upload access to post Shorts on your behalf, and read-only analytics to show you performance data.
2.We temporarily fetch your video
When you ask us to generate Shorts from one of your videos, we fetch the video file from its public YouTube URL (the same URL any viewer uses). This is a server-side operation — the file is never stored in the cloud, never shared, and is processed in memory on our worker server.
3.AI finds the best moments
Our AI analyses the audio and visual content to identify high-engagement segments — strong hooks, punchy quotes, key moments — and clips them into vertical Shorts with subtitles and a thumbnail.
4.The original file is deleted immediately
As soon as the Shorts are generated, the original video file is permanently deleted from our server. We do not store, cache, redistribute, index, train on, or retain the source video in any form after processing completes.
5.Shorts are published via the official API
Generated Shorts are uploaded directly to your YouTube channel using the official YouTube Data API v3. You stay in full control — you can review, edit, schedule, or delete any Short before or after it goes live.
We follow the principle of least privilege — we only ask for the permissions we actually need.
| Scope | Why we need it |
|---|---|
| youtube.readonly | List your playlists and videos so you can choose what to process. |
| youtube.upload | Upload generated Shorts to your channel on your behalf. |
| yt-analytics.readonly | Show you view counts, watch time, and subscriber data inside your dashboard. |
| email / profile (Google) | Identify your account and display your channel thumbnail in the dashboard. |
OAuth tokens — stored encrypted (AES-256-CBC) in our database. Automatically revoked and deleted when you disconnect your YouTube account via Settings.
Source video files — held in memory on the processing server only for the duration of clipping (typically 2–5 minutes). Permanently deleted immediately after your Shorts are generated. Never written to persistent storage.
Generated Shorts — stored temporarily on the worker server until uploaded to YouTube, then deleted from our servers.
Analytics data — fetched on demand from the YouTube Analytics API and displayed directly in your dashboard. We do not persistently store raw analytics figures.
Account data — your email, channel ID, and channel name are retained while your account is active. You can request full deletion by contacting dave@shortshorts.ai.
ShortShorts.ai's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Google user data is used only to provide and improve the ShortShorts.ai service for the user — never for advertising, profiling, or any purpose unrelated to the core clipping and publishing workflow described above.
