Xiaohongshu (Rednote) Note scraper (Keyword search)

What does Xiaohongshu Search Scraper do?

Xiaohongshu Search Scraper searches xiaohongshu.com (RED / RedNote / 小红书) for the keywords you give it and returns one clean record per note: title, full description, author, likes, collects, comments, shares, tags, publish and edit times, the poster's IP region, every image with dimensions and live-photo video, and every video stream variant. It runs a real logged-in browser session, so it uses the same sort, note-type, time-window and location filters a person sees on the site, including 同城 (same city), which lets you restrict search to one country or city when combined with a proxy there.

It is built for monitoring, not one-off dumps: each run remembers what it has already collected, queues what it found but hasn't opened yet, and caps how many notes it opens, so you can schedule it hourly and let it work through a long keyword list over days without re-scraping or overloading one account.

Why use Xiaohongshu Search Scraper?

• Local-market listening. The ip_location field is Xiaohongshu's own stamp of where the poster was. Combined with the 同城 filter and a residential proxy, you can collect what people in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong or any other region are actually saying, instead of wading through mainland results.
• Brand and competitor tracking. Run 20 to 100 keywords on a schedule and get only new notes each time.
• Trend research. Sort by newest, restrict to the past day or week, and see what is rising.
• Complete media metadata. Full-resolution image URLs, live-photo streams, and all video variants with codec, resolution and bitrate.
• Cheap per note. Pay-per-event pricing well below comparable scrapers; see the pricing section.

How to use Xiaohongshu Search Scraper

1. Log in to xiaohongshu.com in Chrome with the account you want to use. A dedicated account is strongly recommended.
2. Export its cookies. The Cookie-Editor extension (Export → JSON) is the easiest; Netscape cookies.txt and a raw Cookie: header string also work.
3. Paste the export into the Session cookies field. It is stored encrypted, and the actor keeps it in its own private store after the first run, so later runs and schedules can leave the field empty.
4. Enter your keywords. Chinese and English both work.
5. Set Max note opens per run (default 40) and click Start.
6. For an ongoing monitor, create a Schedule (hourly is a good default) and set Keywords per run so a long list rotates across runs.

Input

Field	Description	Default
keywords	Search terms, one search each	required
keywords_per_run	Rotate through a long list N keywords per run (0 = all every run)	0
sort	relevant / latest / most liked / most commented / most collected	relevant
sweep_sorts	Run every sort order per keyword and merge, for more unique notes	false
note_type	all / video / image	all
time_window	all / past day / past week / past 6 months	all
location	anywhere / same city (同城) / nearby (附近), relative to the session's IP	anywhere
region_keywords	Words that flag a note as about your region (region_marker)	Singapore set
max_notes_per_keyword	Stop scrolling a search once this many new notes are found	40
max_note_opens_per_run	Hard cap on note pages opened per run	40
max_run_minutes	Stop cleanly after this many minutes; keep below your schedule interval	45
scrape_details	Open each note for full fields. Off = search-card data only	true
delay_min_ms / delay_max_ms	Random pause between page actions	2000 / 5000
cookies	Logged-in session cookies (secret); needed once
proxy_configuration	Apify Proxy. Use RESIDENTIAL with a country code to make 同城 mean that country	off
block_media	Skip downloading images and video; URLs are still captured	true
skip_seen	Do not re-open notes scraped in earlier runs	true
state_store_name	Named store holding seen IDs, the pending queue and the session	xiaohongshu-scraper-state

Filtering to one region

Set proxy_configuration to Apify Proxy, group RESIDENTIAL, country SG (or your target), and location to same city. Xiaohongshu's 同城 filter is relative to the browsing session's location, so search results come back local before a single note is opened. Every record also carries ip_location (the platform's own poster-region stamp) and region_marker (true when the text matches your Region keywords; defaults cover Singapore), so you can filter downstream as well.

Output

One dataset item per note. Download as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read it through the API.

{
  "note_id": "66f1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1",
  "url": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/66f1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b9c0d1",
  "keyword": "咖啡店 推荐",
  "found_with": {"sort": "general", "note_type": "all", "time_window": "all", "location": "same_city"},
  "title": "…",
  "description": "…full text…",
  "note_type": "normal",
  "author_id": "5f9aab180000000001008d92",
  "author_name": "…",
  "author_avatar": "https://sns-avatar-…",
  "author_url": "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/5f9aab18…",
  "likes": 175, "collects": 40, "comments": 31, "shares": 6,
  "tags": ["…"],
  "at_users": [],
  "ip_location": "新加坡",
  "region_marker": true,
  "published_at": "2026-09-01T04:49:26+00:00",
  "last_edited_at": "2026-09-01T05:10:02+00:00",
  "image_count": 4,
  "image_urls": ["https://sns-webpic-…"],
  "images": [{"url": "…", "width": 1440, "height": 1920, "scenes": {"WB_DFT": "…", "WB_PRV": "…"}, "live_photo": false, "live_photo_url": null}],
  "video_url": null,
  "video": null,
  "scraped_at": "2026-09-28T04:40:00+00:00",
  "source": "state"
}

For video notes, video holds duration, thumbnail and every stream variant with codec, resolution, bitrate, audio codec and master/backup URLs. Media URLs are signed by Xiaohongshu and expire after a while; download at scrape time if you need the files.

Data fields

Field	Description
note_id, url	Note identifier and canonical URL
keyword, found_with	The search and filters that discovered the note
title, description, note_type	Content; note_type is normal (images) or video
author_id, author_name, author_avatar, author_url	Poster
likes, collects, comments, shares	Engagement counts at scrape time
tags, at_users	Hashtags and @-mentions
ip_location	Poster's region as stamped by Xiaohongshu
region_marker	True when text or IP region matches your region keywords
published_at, last_edited_at	ISO timestamps, UTC
image_count, image_urls, images	Gallery, with dimensions and live-photo video
video_url, video	Playable URL and all stream variants
scraped_at, source	When it was collected; state (page data) or dom (fallback)

How much does it cost to scrape Xiaohongshu?

Pay-per-event. You are charged only for what you get:

Event	Price
Actor start	$0.01 per run (per GB of memory, minimum one)
Note detail	$0.003 per full note record
Note discovered	$0.0005 per search-card stub (search-only mode)

A scheduled hourly run that opens 40 notes costs about $0.13 per run, or roughly $3 a day for ~1,000 notes including compute. Runs that stop early because the account was challenged or the spending limit was reached are charged only for the notes they delivered. Set Maximum total charge on the run to cap spend.

Tips

• One account, one hourly run. Xiaohongshu flags sessions that appear from many places in quick succession. Keep runs at least an hour apart per account, keep delays at 2 seconds or more, and do not switch proxy countries between runs on the same account.
• Turn on sweep_sorts for a fresh keyword to find more unique notes; turn it off for a monitor that only needs what's new.
• Use time_window: 1w for monitors. Discovery becomes fast and cheap once the backlog is done.
• If a run ends with "Blocked" the account was challenged. Open Xiaohongshu in your own browser, complete the verification, re-export cookies, and paste them once more. The pending queue is preserved.
• debug_raw saves screenshots of the filter panel and any error text to the run's key-value store, which is the fastest way to see what happened.

FAQ and disclaimer

Why does it need my cookies? Xiaohongshu shows search results and note details only to logged-in users, and its API is signed. A real browser session is the only stable way to read the page. Your cookies are stored as a secret and never appear in logs or datasets.

Can it collect comments or follower counts? Not in this version. Comments would roughly double the cost per note; follower counts need a profile visit per author. Both are on the list if there is demand.

Is this legal? Scraping publicly visible content for research is generally lawful, but Xiaohongshu's terms restrict automated access and notes may contain personal information. You are responsible for how you use the output and for complying with applicable law and the platform's terms.

Known limitations. The filter panel is driven by clicking the site's UI, so a redesign can break sort/time/location filters until the actor is updated; the run logs a warning and falls back to default ordering. Media URLs expire. Relevance-sorted results for brand terms drift toward mainland China after the first ~20 notes; use 同城, time_window, region-anchored keywords, or the ip_location field.

Report problems in the Issues tab. Custom fields, other regions or a managed schedule are available on request.