📕 Xiaohongshu (RedNote) Scraper — Notes, Users & Search

Turn public Xiaohongshu / RedNote (小红书, XHS, Little Red Book) content into clean datasets for KOL discovery, social listening, competitor tracking, content research, and China market intelligence.

Search by a simple keyword or enrich public note and creator links. Each successful result is saved as a structured row that can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML and connected to your preferred Apify integration.

✨ What you can collect

Dataset	Valuable fields
🔍 Note search	Title, description, note type, cover, image/video URLs, hashtags and source keyword
📈 Engagement	Likes, saves, comments, shares and posting time
👤 Creator discovery	Name, RedNote ID, avatar, verification and profile URL
🎯 User search	Creator bio, followers, following, published notes and public location signals
📕 Note details	Full public note metadata from supplied links
🗂️ Profile research	Public creator profile and visible note catalogue

Media URLs are collected without downloading large files, keeping runs faster and more economical.

🚀 Quick start

1. Select Search notes or Search users.
2. Enter a brand, product, niche, hashtag, or topic.
3. Choose the maximum number of results and click Start.
4. Download the dataset or connect it to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n, Airbyte, or your API workflow.

The ready-to-run input searches skincare and requests 50 results. Empty API input also works and explores a balanced set of popular categories.

{
    "operation": "searchNotes",
    "keywords": ["skincare", "city walk"],
    "maxItems": 50,
    "includeDescription": true,
    "includeMedia": true
}

Chinese keywords generally provide the deepest native coverage, while English and mixed queries are also supported.

🎯 Use cases

KOL and influencer discovery

Search users or notes in beauty, fashion, travel, food, fitness, parenting, technology, and lifestyle niches. Compare public creator identity, verification, follower signals, posting activity, and content engagement before outreach.

China market research

Collect consumer conversations around a product, category, or international brand. Export titles, descriptions, hashtags, media, authors, and engagement for qualitative and quantitative research.

Brand and competitor monitoring

Schedule keyword searches to build snapshots of campaign visibility, audience response, rising posts, and creator participation over time.

Content strategy and trend detection

Compare likes, saves, comments, shares, formats, topics, and publishing times to identify content patterns that resonate with RedNote audiences.

Social listening and AI datasets

Create structured public-text datasets for sentiment analysis, topic clustering, translation, retrieval, dashboards, and responsible AI/NLP research.

Creator due diligence

Start with user search, collect relevant creator profile URLs, then run the profile mode to review public profile information and visible posts in one export.

⚙️ Input guide

Input	Purpose	Default
operation	Search notes, search users, note details, or user profiles	searchNotes
keywords	Products, brands, topics, hashtags, or creator niches	Popular discovery topics
urls	Public note/profile/share links for enrichment modes	Empty
maxItems	Maximum unique rows across all sources	500 (50 prefilled)
includeDescription	Keep public note text	true
includeMedia	Keep public image/video URLs	true
includeUserNotes	Include visible notes in profile mode	true
proxyConfiguration	Connection settings	Cost-efficient Apify proxy

No field is required. For the simplest workflow, keep Search notes, enter a keyword, and run.

📊 Output examples

Note search result

{
    "recordType": "note-search",
    "noteId": "69ec85eb000000001e00cd6c",
    "title": "Daily skincare routine",
    "description": "Morning and evening routine...",
    "noteType": "normal",
    "noteUrl": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/69ec85eb000000001e00cd6c",
    "coverUrl": "https://sns-webpic-qc.xhscdn.com/...",
    "imageUrls": ["https://sns-webpic-qc.xhscdn.com/..."],
    "likedCount": 4231,
    "collectedCount": 892,
    "commentsCount": 167,
    "sharedCount": 23,
    "authorId": "5ee58a2e000000000100057e",
    "authorName": "Beauty Journal",
    "authorProfileUrl": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/5ee58a2e000000000100057e",
    "source": "search:skincare"
}

User search result

{
    "recordType": "user-search",
    "userId": "5ee58a2e000000000100057e",
    "userName": "Beauty Journal",
    "redId": "257152115",
    "bio": "Skincare reviews and routines",
    "avatarUrl": "https://sns-avatar-qc.xhscdn.com/...",
    "profileUrl": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/5ee58a2e000000000100057e",
    "verified": false,
    "followersCount": 128400,
    "followingCount": 315,
    "notesCount": 246,
    "source": "search:skincare"
}

Fields that are not publicly available for a particular result are omitted instead of being filled with misleading placeholders.

🔌 API example

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USERNAME~xiaohongshu-rednote-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"operation":"searchUsers","keywords":["beauty creator"],"maxItems":100}'

You can also use the Apify JavaScript/Python clients, webhooks, schedules, MCP, Make, Zapier, n8n, Airbyte, Google Drive, or hundreds of other integrations.

⚡ Performance and cost design

• Large image, video, font, and tracking downloads are blocked; their public URLs remain in the output.
• Results are deduplicated by note or user ID across keywords.
• Search and discovery use lightweight server-rendered pages first; a browser starts only when a fallback is required.
• The default memory was reduced from 2,048 MB to 512 MB after cloud memory testing.
• The latest 200-result cloud regression completed in 1 minute 38 seconds and used $0.0053 of platform resources. A 100-result regression used $0.0035.
• The default connection balances public coverage and run cost; residential routing remains available in Advanced settings.

Actual duration and result count depend on keyword breadth, public availability, network conditions, and source-side limits.

✅ Responsible use

This Actor collects publicly accessible information and does not access private profiles or private content. Use datasets lawfully and respect applicable privacy, intellectual-property, platform, and data-protection requirements. Avoid unwanted profiling, spam, harassment, or decisions that materially affect people.

Xiaohongshu, RedNote, Little Red Book, XHS, and 小红书 are trademarks of their respective owners. This independent Actor is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Xiaohongshu.

❓ FAQ

Do I need coding knowledge?

No. Choose an operation, enter a keyword, and click Start. Results appear in the Dataset tab and can be downloaded directly.

Do I need a RedNote account?

The Actor is designed around publicly accessible pages and browser-generated public requests. It does not ask you for a RedNote password.

Can I search English keywords?

Yes. Chinese, English, hashtags, brand names, and mixed queries are accepted. Chinese terms often surface deeper local coverage.

Why are some fields missing?

RedNote exposes different fields by content type and surface. The Actor omits unavailable values to keep the dataset honest and analysis-friendly.

Are media files downloaded?

No. Public CDN URLs are exported, but heavy media binaries are not downloaded. If a media URL matters to your workflow, save it promptly because platforms may rotate CDN links.

Can I combine multiple keywords?

Yes. Add multiple keywords; the Actor merges results into one dataset and removes duplicate note or user IDs.

Can I schedule monitoring?

Yes. Save the input as an Apify Task and schedule recurring runs for brand, competitor, trend, or creator monitoring.

What happens when a result is deleted or private?

Unavailable/private content is not extracted. Successful public records remain in the dataset without fabricated error rows.