Xiaohongshu Keyword Search Scraper

✨ What you get

Find trending Xiaohongshu (小红书 / REDnote / Little Red Book) products, KOLs, and content in 30 seconds — drop one keyword, get 20 ranked notes with engagement metrics (likes, comments, collects), author profile, shareable URLs, and cover images. No login, no captcha, no headless browser.

Built for cross-border e-commerce sourcing, influencer discovery, trend monitoring, and content marketing research on China's #1 lifestyle platform. Output exports as JSON, CSV, or Excel — pipe directly into your CRM, BI tool, or another Apify Actor.

5 free runs / day — no API key required. Start in 30 seconds.

💼 Use cases

• Reading what is trending in a vertical this week — keyword: 美食推荐 with noteType: 视频笔记, timeFilter: 一周内 and sortType: popularity_descending returns the week's most-liked video notes, which is a ready-made weekly content brief rather than a raw feed.
• Building a KOL shortlist from search output — every row carries userId, nickname and avatar next to likedCount, collectedCount and commentCount, so the authors behind the best-performing notes become a prospect list without a second tool.
• Finding English-language notes on a Chinese platform — sortType: english_preferred reorders the same keyword to surface English-first content, which is the fastest way to check whether a term has moved into Xiaohongshu's international audience.
• Spotting the difference between saves and likes — sortType: collect_descending ranks by bookmarks, so a keyword where collections outrun likes tells you the content is being saved for later rather than liked in passing, which is a different intent than a like.

✅ Who this is for

• Cross-border e-commerce sellers — looking for product mentions and content angles inside a Chinese vertical.
• Xiaohongshu KOL and 账号 discovery teams — who need author identity and engagement next to each note.
• Content strategists and SEO writers — who want the note titles and tags that are currently ranking for a keyword.
• Market and academic researchers — sampling public discussion on a topic on China's largest lifestyle platform.

❌ Who this is NOT for

• Multi-keyword batch runs — the Actor is locked to one keyword per run, and each run performs exactly one upstream request returning roughly 20 unique notes after deduplication. A 50-keyword sweep is 50 runs, and on the free tier it is five runs.
• Anyone hoping to derive deep pages from the keyword alone — page=2 and beyond need the opaque searchId and searchSessionId tokens handed back by the previous run, and those tokens cannot be computed from the keyword. They have to be copied out of the previous SUMMARY by hand or wired into a workflow.
• Treating two runs as a stable trend line — search rankings and the available notes change between runs, so a day-over-day diff shows movement in the feed as well as movement in the topic.
• Any dimension beyond the search card — what you get per note is the search-page record: identifiers, title, description, note type, cover and the four counters. Image lists, video URLs and comment text are not in this output.
• Guaranteed field coverage — field availability depends on what the platform returns for that particular search, so a field you depend on can be absent for some notes and present for others in the same run.

🚀 Quick start

1. Open the Actor page on Apify.
2. Type one Xiaohongshu keyword (Chinese, English, or any language) into the keyword field.
3. Optionally pick a sortType, noteType, or timeFilter — see Common filter recipes below for ready-made combos. All three default to Xiaohongshu's standard search page.
4. Set page to the number of pages you want (default 1, max 10). Each page = one Data provider request.
5. If page >= 2, paste searchId and searchSessionId from the previous run's SUMMARY (see Pagination above).
6. Click Start. The Actor searches Xiaohongshu and writes results to the run's Dataset in seconds.
7. Download the Dataset as JSON, CSV, or Excel, or pipe it into another Apify Actor.

📥 Input parameters

{
  "keyword": "美食推荐",
  "page": 1,
  "sortType": "general",
  "noteType": "不限",
  "timeFilter": "不限"
}

Input fields

Field	Required	Default	Description
keyword	Yes	美食推荐	One Xiaohongshu search keyword, max 100 characters (e.g. 美食推荐, 护肤, 东京旅游)
page	No	1	Page number, between 1 and 10. Each page triggers one Data provider request (page=3 = 3 requests). See Pagination below.
searchId	When page >= 2	""	Pagination token from a previous run. Copy from the previous SUMMARY field nextSearchId (or from the first Dataset item's rawData.search_id). Leave blank for page 1.
searchSessionId	When page >= 2	""	Pagination token from a previous run. Copy from the previous SUMMARY field nextSearchSessionId (or from the first Dataset item's rawData.search_session_id). Leave blank for page 1.
sortType	No	general	Sort order: general (Xiaohongshu default), time_descending (latest), popularity_descending (most liked), comment_descending (most commented), collect_descending (most collected), english_preferred (English-first)
noteType	No	不限	Note type filter: 不限 (all), 视频笔记 (video only), 普通笔记 (image only), 直播笔记 (live only)
timeFilter	No	不限	Publish-time filter: 不限 (all time), 一天内 (within 24 hours), 一周内 (within 7 days), 半年内 (within 6 months)

The Actor is locked to one keyword per run (use multiple runs for different keywords). The page field controls how many pages — and therefore how many Data provider requests (a request) — one run performs. The three filter fields map 1:1 to Data provider query parameters; leaving them at their defaults is identical to Xiaohongshu's default search page.

⚙️ How it works

The Actor follows Xiaohongshu's pagination protocol: every page after the first needs the opaque search_id / search_session_id tokens that the data provider returned on the previous page.

How to paginate (two-step pattern)

Step 1 — First page (always works without tokens):

{
  "keyword": "美食推荐",
  "page": 1,
  "sortType": "popularity_descending"
}

After this run, read the Apify Key-Value Store entry SUMMARY — it contains:

{
  "ok": true,
  "pagesFetched": 1,
  "requests": 1,
  "nextSearchId": "PASTE_THIS_INTO_searchId",
  "nextSearchSessionId": "PASTE_THIS_INTO_searchSessionId",
  "hasMoreInSource": true
}

If hasMoreInSource is true, more pages exist.

Step 2 — Subsequent pages (must include both tokens):

{
  "keyword": "美食推荐",
  "page": 2,
  "searchId": "<paste nextSearchId from Step 1>",
  "searchSessionId": "<paste nextSearchSessionId from Step 1>"
}

Each call to page=N walks N pages forward. If page=5 is requested but hasMore becomes false after page 3, the Actor stops and the SUMMARY's pagesFetched will be 3, not 5.

Cost & quota

• Cost: each page costs the same as a single request — see the Apify Actor pricing model.
• Free Apify users: 5 runs per day, regardless of pages per run. A page=5 run consumes 1 quota slot.
• Paid Apify users: unlimited runs and unlimited pages.
• Maximum pages per run is 10 (input cap, validator rejects page > 10).

Why pagination tokens are opaque

Xiaohongshu's app API generates a fresh pagination token pair for every search session; the Actor must forward these exact tokens to fetch the next page. There is no way to derive them from the keyword alone. Treat them like a session cookie: copy from the previous run's SUMMARY and pass back unchanged.

Goal	Input combination
Trending video posts from the last week	keyword: "美食推荐", noteType: "视频笔记", timeFilter: "一周内", sortType: "popularity_descending"
Latest image notes only	keyword: "护肤", noteType: "普通笔记", sortType: "time_descending"
24-hour hot list, any type	keyword: "东京旅游", timeFilter: "一天内", sortType: "popularity_descending"
Most-discussed videos this half-year	keyword: "健身", noteType: "视频笔记", timeFilter: "半年内", sortType: "comment_descending"
English-first discovery	keyword: "Tokyo travel", sortType: "english_preferred"

Leaving every filter at its default reproduces Xiaohongshu's standard search page — the most common usage. Combine any recipe with page=2..10 plus the previous run's pagination tokens for deeper coverage.

💰 Billing

Tier	Daily runs	Per run	Notes
Free Apify users	5 runs / day	Up to 20 unique notes	Quota enforced via Actor KV store
Paid Apify users (APIFY_USER_IS_PAYING=1)	Unlimited	Up to 20 unique notes	No quota gate inside the Actor

Quota is per calendar day (UTC). Runs 1-5 succeed; run 6+ on the free tier fails fast with Free tier limit reached and writes a SUMMARY.ok=false record so you can detect the rejection programmatically.

❓ FAQ

• Exactly one keyword and one Data provider request per run. Multi-keyword batch runs and pagination are intentionally disabled to keep the free tier predictable.
• Field availability depends on the data returned by Xiaohongshu for the given search.
• Search rankings and available notes may change between runs.
• Use the data responsibly and comply with applicable laws and Xiaohongshu's terms of service.

Is this an official Xiaohongshu API? No. This Actor is a third-party Xiaohongshu scraper built on top of an independent data source. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Xiaohongshu.

Do I need to bring my own API key or pay for Xiaohongshu data? No. The Actor is fully managed. You only need an Apify account.

Can I scrape multiple keywords in one run? Not in this Actor. Run the Actor once per keyword. To automate batches, chain it with another Apify Actor such as the Apify Scheduler or a workflow tool.

Why are the results limited to 20 notes per run? Each run performs exactly one Data provider request, and the data provider returns roughly 20 notes per page. The cap matches real Data provider capacity and keeps the Actor affordable for casual users. Paid users can still get more coverage by running the Actor multiple times with different keywords.

How do I paginate to get more than one page of results? Run the Actor with page=1 first. After it finishes, open the Apify Key-Value Store entry SUMMARY and copy the nextSearchId / nextSearchSessionId values. Then run again with page=2 and paste those two values into searchId and searchSessionId. Repeat for page=3, etc. See the Pagination section above for the full pattern.

How many pages can I fetch in one run? Up to 10 pages (the page field caps at 10). The Actor stops early if Data provider returns hasMore=false or an empty page — the SUMMARY's pagesFetched field reports the actual count.

How is the free-tier quota counted? Each Actor run — successful or not — consumes one quota slot. Quota resets every day at 00:00 UTC.

📚 Resources

If you are looking for a way to scrape Xiaohongshu, search Xiaohongshu notes by keyword, run a Xiaohongshu search scraper, or pull a Xiaohongshu dataset for analysis, this Actor is the simplest starting point. The output JSON is schema-stable, so you can build downstream pipelines (Python, Node.js, Sheets, Airtable, Notion) without parsing the raw Xiaohongshu HTML.

📜 Notes & caveats

Use it together with the other Xiaohongshu Actors

This Actor is one piece of a 4-piece Xiaohongshu toolkit. Run them in sequence to go from a topic, to a single note detail, to its comment thread.

Where in the pipeline	Actor	Console	Use it to
before / step ①	Xiaohongshu Image Note Detail Scraper	kP7I5XcMAaLxaYj0R	step ② — feed it any noteId from your search output to get the full image-note payload
sister Actor / step ②	Xiaohongshu Video Note Detail Scraper	nIGSWsYF5htLotphk	step ② — same, but for video notes (returns playback URLs + duration)
after / step ③	Xiaohongshu Note Comments Scraper	LNXEA0uuHX70vchNW	step ③ — once you have a note, pull the comment thread (paginated)

You are here: Xiaohongshu Keyword Search Scraper (step ① (start here)) — run this on its own for find notes by keyword. The other 3 Actors live in their own Apify listings — click their Console links to open them in a new tab.

Cross-Platform Alternatives

Keyword search on Xiaohongshu is one of several Chinese-language content discovery methods. For broader Chinese content monitoring or English-market B2B lead generation, see:

Platform	Actor	Use it for
Weibo	Weibo Keyword Search Scraper	keyword search on Weibo (7 search_type filters)
Weibo	Weibo Hot Search Scraper	trending-topic discovery on Weibo (top ~100)
Google Maps	Maps Business Leads Scraper	B2B lead generation by category, keyword, and location

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