ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'win32api'

On Windows, Scrapy (via Twisted) needs the pywin32 package, which provides the win32api module. Install it with python -m pip install pywin32 and the import works. This is Windows-only; you will never see this error on macOS or Linux.

The error

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'win32api'

Fix it

1. Install pywin32

python -m pip install pywin32

Expected: Successfully installed pywin32-....

1. Confirm the import chain

python -c "import win32api; import scrapy; print('ok')"

Expected: prints ok.

1. Run your spider

scrapy crawl [spider-name]

Expected: the crawl starts instead of dying at import.

When this applies

• you are on Windows and Scrapy fails naming win32api
• the traceback goes through twisted's Windows support modules
• a fresh Windows venv or CI runner

When it does NOT apply

• macOS or Linux will never produce this error; look at the real missing module instead
• No module named 'twisted' is the separate Twisted gap

Compatibility

All Scrapy 2.x on Windows, all CPython versions with pywin32 wheels. The Scrapy docs FAQ lists pywin32 as a Windows requirement.

Why it happens

Twisted's Windows reactor imports win32api for process and handle management, and pywin32 is the package that provides it. It is a platform-specific dependency, so pip's generic dependency resolution does not always pull it in, and minimal Windows installs miss it.

Edge cases

• After installing pywin32, some setups need the post-install step (python Scripts/pywin32_postinstall.py -install) for the COM bits. The win32api import itself works without it.
• If you use conda on Windows, conda install pywin32 is the equivalent.
• Anaconda on Windows usually ships pywin32 already, so this mostly bites plain python.org installs and fresh venvs.