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

```text
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'win32api'
```

## Fix it

1. **Install pywin32**

```
python -m pip install pywin32
```
Expected: `Successfully installed pywin32-...`.

2. **Confirm the import chain**

```
python -c "import win32api; import scrapy; print('ok')"
```
Expected: prints `ok`.

3. **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.