RedNote (Xiaohongshu) Scraper — Reliable, Maintained, Pay-Per-Result

Scrape RedNote (Xiaohongshu / 小红书) at scale: search notes by keyword, pull all posts from a user, fetch note details, and retrieve user profiles. Built for brand monitoring, influencer discovery, competitor analysis, and China-market research.

$3 per 1,000 results. Billed only for successfully scraped records.

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Why this Actor

Existing Apify RedNote scrapers average below 1.5★ because they fight RedNote's signing rotation with hand-rolled implementations that break monthly. This Actor delegates signing to xhs — a proven open-source Python library (MIT) that has tracked every signing scheme change since 2023 and was last updated in July 2025. When the upstream releases a fix, we bump our pinned version and redeploy within 48 hours.

Result: you get a scraper that breaks less often and recovers faster when RedNote rotates its API.

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Features

• 4 modes — search, user posts, note detail, user profile
• Structured output — engagement stats (likes/collects/comments/shares), image URLs, video URL, hashtags, publish time, location
• Residential proxy support — recommended for production use
• Pay-per-result — $0.003/record, charged only on success
• Run stats — every run writes a runStats key to the key-value store with item count, version, and error count

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Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	enum	search	search / userPosts / note / profile
query	string	—	Keyword to search (mode=search)
userUrl	string	—	Profile URL (mode=userPosts, mode=profile)
noteUrl	string	—	Note URL with xsec_token (mode=note)
maxResults	integer	50	Cap on records extracted (1–1000)
cookie	string	—	Xiaohongshu web session cookie — strongly recommended
includeImages	boolean	true	Include CDN image URLs in output
proxyConfiguration	object	RESIDENTIAL	Proxy settings

Getting your cookie

1. Open xiaohongshu.com and log in
2. Open DevTools (F12) → Network tab → filter by XHR
3. Click any request → Headers → copy the full Cookie header value
4. Paste into the cookie input field

Without a cookie, most endpoints return authentication errors. The cookie does not expire immediately but may need refreshing if the actor returns auth errors after a few days.

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Worked examples

Search (brand monitoring)

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "Laneige water sleeping mask",
  "maxResults": 200,
  "cookie": "<your-cookie>"
}

User Posts (influencer content audit)

{
  "mode": "userPosts",
  "userUrl": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/5e1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1e",
  "maxResults": 100,
  "cookie": "<your-cookie>"
}

Note Detail (competitor research)

{
  "mode": "note",
  "noteUrl": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/67a1bc2def3456789012abcd?xsec_token=ABCxyz&xsec_source=pc_feed",
  "cookie": "<your-cookie>"
}

Profile (influencer vetting)

{
  "mode": "profile",
  "userUrl": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/5e1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1e",
  "cookie": "<your-cookie>"
}

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Output

Note record (modes: search, userPosts, note)

{
  "noteId": "67a1bc2def3456789012abcd",
  "url": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/67a1bc2def3456789012abcd",
  "title": "My daily skincare routine for oily skin",
  "contentText": "Here's what I use every morning #skincare #beauty",
  "author": {
    "userId": "5e1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1e",
    "nickname": "BeautyByLi",
    "avatar": "https://sns-avatar-qc.xhscdn.com/avatar/example.jpg"
  },
  "stats": {
    "likes": 12000,
    "collects": 3456,
    "comments": 789,
    "shares": 234
  },
  "images": [
    "https://sns-img-qc.xhscdn.com/img/example1.jpg"
  ],
  "videoUrl": null,
  "hashtags": ["skincare", "beauty", "oilyskin"],
  "publishTime": "2024-05-24T08:00:00+00:00",
  "location": null,
  "_mode": "search",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-24T10:00:00.000000+00:00"
}

Profile record (mode: profile)

{
  "userId": "abc123def456789012345678",
  "nickname": "FoodieWang",
  "bio": "Food blogger | Beijing & Shanghai | Sharing my best finds",
  "avatar": "https://sns-avatar-qc.xhscdn.com/avatar/foodie.jpg",
  "gender": 2,
  "location": "Beijing",
  "stats": {
    "followers": 123000,
    "following": 456,
    "posts": 234
  },
  "_mode": "profile",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-24T10:00:00.000000+00:00"
}

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Pricing

Volume	Cost
100 results	$0.30
1,000 results	$3.00
10,000 results	$30.00

Note: Apify requires a 14-day delay before new pricing takes effect.

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How it stays working

RedNote rotates its request-signing scheme roughly every 1–3 months. Instead of re-implementing signing ourselves, this Actor is a thin wrapper around xhs, an open-source Python library that has tracked every signing change since 2023.

Our maintenance commitment:

• When xhs releases a signing fix, we bump our pinned version and publish a new Actor build within 48 hours
• If you hit auth errors, check our GitHub issues — a fix is likely already in progress
• Subscribe to xhs releases at https://github.com/ReaJason/xhs/releases for early warning

See ./ATTRIBUTION.md for full upstream credit.

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Legal notice

RedNote (Xiaohongshu) data includes personal information. Users are responsible for complying with Xiaohongshu's Terms of Service, applicable privacy law (GDPR, PIPL, CCPA), and copyright law. This Actor is intended for legitimate business intelligence, market research, and brand monitoring purposes. Do not use it for harassment, mass-collection of private data, or any purpose that violates applicable law.