How to save RedNote (Xiaohongshu) videos on your PC
Found a video on RedNote you want to keep, but the copy-paste-into-a-website routine keeps failing or handing you something blurry? RedNote (Xiaohongshu) is awkward for most online tools. Here's how to save any RedNote video in full quality, free, straight to your Windows PC.
The short answer: To save a RedNote (Xiaohongshu) video on Windows, copy the note link from the app's Share menu, paste it into GrabMonkey, and click Download. You get the original MP4 in its posted quality with no watermark and no login. It works for public video notes, and the MP3 option pulls just the audio when that is all you need.
What RedNote actually is
RedNote is the English name for Xiaohongshu, literally "Little Red Book", a Chinese social network and shopping platform where users publish "notes" that mix text, images, and short videos. It started in 2013 as a travel shopping guide and grew into something like Instagram, Pinterest, and a storefront rolled into one, with hundreds of millions of monthly users sharing beauty routines, recipes, travel guides, and product reviews.
If the name showed up on your radar recently, there is a reason. In early 2025, with a US TikTok ban looking likely, American users flooded onto the app as a backup plan, and the English name RedNote stuck. The China-Britain Business Council has a good explainer on that moment if you want the backstory. The practical detail for you: the international app is called RedNote, the Chinese app is called Xiaohongshu, and the content library is the same. A video link works the same either way, and so does the method in this guide.
The reason people want to save RedNote videos is the same reason the platform took off: the content is genuinely useful. Makeup tutorials with the exact product names on screen, restaurant walkthroughs, renovation diaries, study routines. That is also why a blurry re-encode defeats the purpose. You want the original file, not a shrunk copy, which brings us to the problem.
Why RedNote is hard to download from
RedNote was built as a mobile-first, app-first platform, and its video player shows it. Note pages on the web are rendered as overlays with the video file buried behind the platform's own player logic, and the app guards its media URLs more carefully than most Western platforms do. Generic web downloaders were mostly designed around YouTube and TikTok link formats, so when you hand them a RedNote note link, one of three things happens: the tool says it cannot read the link at all, it pulls a low-resolution copy to save its own bandwidth, or it worked last month and broke this month when RedNote changed something.
The watermark is the other half of the frustration. Videos saved through the app's own share flow carry a moving Xiaohongshu watermark with the creator's ID baked into the frame. That is fine for casual reposting inside the app's ecosystem, but it ruins a file you want to edit, study frame by frame, or keep as a clean archive. Online tools that promise "no watermark" RedNote downloads usually achieve it by grabbing a lower-quality stream where the watermark is less visible, which is not really the same thing as removing it.
Running the download locally on your own PC gets around most of this. GrabMonkey is a free Windows video downloader with built-in support for RedNote and the other Chinese networks, and because it fetches the actual file from your machine instead of proxying through some website's server, it can reach the original upload instead of a re-encoded copy.
Every method, honestly compared
Before the steps, here is the full landscape, because the "just Google a downloader site" reflex is exactly what wastes an afternoon on RedNote.
Online downloader sites. The copy-link-paste-into-a-website routine. For RedNote specifically, this is the least reliable option of the bunch. A handful of sites support Xiaohongshu links, but the support is fragile: RedNote changes its page structure often, and a site that worked in August may quietly fail by October. When they do work, check the file size before you celebrate. Many serve a compressed copy, and the ad situation on these pages is exactly as bad as you remember.
Screen recording. Windows has the Xbox Game Bar built in, and plenty of free recorders do the same job. It always produces a file, which is its one virtue. But you are re-recording a compressed stream, so you lose a generation of quality, the file comes out larger than it needs to be, and you have to play the whole clip in real time with notifications muted. Fine as a last resort for a clip nothing else can reach. Bad as a routine.
Browser extensions. A few Chrome extensions add download buttons to Xiaohongshu pages. The convenience is real, but so are the risks: a video downloader extension usually needs permission to read every page you visit, and these niche tools change hands or go stale fast. Check the publisher history and reviews before installing anything, and be honest about whether you will still trust it in six months.
Developer tools trick. You can open the browser's network tab on a RedNote note page and hunt for the direct video URL. It is free, and it feels clever the first time. It is also slow, it breaks whenever RedNote renames its media endpoints, and on some notes the video URL is split into segments that need joining before they play properly. One clip is a fun puzzle. Ten clips is a second job.
Command line tools. Power users sometimes point yt-dlp at Xiaohongshu links with exported browser cookies, which does work for supported public notes. The catch is right there in the sentence: you need to export cookies, keep them fresh, and accept that video quality is capped unless the cookies are set up correctly. If you are comfortable in a terminal, it is a solid free option. If you are not, the setup cost is not worth it for saving a few videos.
A desktop downloader. GrabMonkey is built for this exact annoyance. Paste the note link, pick the quality, done. No ads, no cookie exporting, no fake buttons, and it grabs the original file the note actually published rather than a re-encode. It also handles the batch case the manual methods cannot touch: paste a bunch of note links and it works through them while you do something else.
Save a RedNote video step by step
- Copy the note link. Open the video in the RedNote app, tap Share, and choose "Copy link". You will get either a full
xiaohongshu.comURL or a shortxhslink.comshare link. Both work. If you are browsing on desktop at xiaohongshu.com, copying the address bar URL works too. - Open GrabMonkey. If it's not installed yet, grab the app, run the installer, and open it. No extra tools needed, no browser extensions, no accounts to create.
- Paste and download. Drop the link in and hit Download. GrabMonkey fetches the original file for supported public notes, so the resolution matches what was posted and no watermark gets stamped on.
- Open the file. It saves to your PC named after the note. Click "Open folder" to jump straight to it, then play it in any player. No conversion needed, since it is already a standard MP4.
Get GrabMonkey free
RedNote, Douyin, Kwai, Bilibili, TikTok and 1,000+ more. One click each, full quality.
⬇ Download GrabMonkey for WindowsWhat to know about quality
Set your expectations once and you will never be disappointed again. The file you can download is always the best version the platform published for that note, never better than that. RedNote, like every social platform, processes uploads when they go live, so the "original" is really the platform's processed master. What matters is that the downloader grabs that master instead of a further-compressed copy, and that it does not recompress on the way to your disk.
This is where RedNote differs from TikTok in a way that works in your favor. TikTok stamps its watermark into files you save through the app, and most people downloading TikTok clips are fighting to get rid of it. With RedNote, GrabMonkey pulls the underlying file for supported public notes, so there is nothing to remove in the first place. No cropping, no blurred patches, no "watermark remover" hacks that eat the corners of your video.
One practical note on resolution. Some RedNote notes exist in multiple quality tiers, and the highest tier is not always available to anonymous requests. When that happens, GrabMonkey lists what the note actually offers and defaults to the top one, so you always know what you got. If a note only offers one stream, that stream is what the platform published, and no tool on earth can conjure a sharper version from it.
Troubleshooting: when a download fails
Most failures trace back to a short list of causes. Work through these before assuming anything is broken.
You pasted the wrong kind of link. GrabMonkey needs the link to a specific note, something like xiaohongshu.com/explore/... or a short xhslink.com/... share link. A link to a user profile, a search page, or the app's home feed will not resolve to a video. Go back to the note itself and use the Share button.
The share text includes junk around the link. RedNote's share menu sometimes copies a block of text with emojis and Chinese characters wrapped around the URL. If the paste does not resolve, try extracting just the URL part. The xhslink.com short links are usually cleanest.
The note is private, deleted, or region restricted. Deleted is deleted: if the creator took the note down, there is nothing left to fetch. Private notes are only served to the creator's approved audience, and no downloader can reach them anonymously. Some notes are also restricted by region, which can make a link that works for a friend in Shanghai fail for you.
RedNote changed something on their end. This platform updates its web player and link formats more often than most, and every downloader that supports it has to adapt. If links that used to work suddenly fail across the board, check for a GrabMonkey update. An actively maintained app adjusts within days; a bookmarked web tool just breaks quietly.
Rate limiting after a big batch. Paste dozens of links in rapid succession and RedNote may start throttling the requests. If a batch stalls halfway through, pause for a few minutes and resume. Spacing out very large batches avoids the problem entirely.
Just want the audio?
If it's the music or voiceover you're after rather than the picture, switch to the MP3 option and GrabMonkey pulls out the audio on its own. RedNote is full of cooking narration, language lessons, and music snippets where the audio is the whole point, so this gets more use than you would expect. The extracted audio comes from the note's own file, so it is as clean as the upload.
The same idea works in reverse for image notes. RedNote notes are often photo carousels rather than videos, and GrabMonkey can pull the original images from those too. If you are archiving a tutorial thread that mixes video notes and photo notes, paste the whole batch and let it sort out which is which.
What RedNote itself says
It is worth checking what the platform actually offers before reaching for any third-party tool. RedNote's own site at xiaohongshu.com and its apps let you save notes to in-app collections, share them, and watch them offline inside the app in some cases. What they do not offer is a "save this video as a file" button. Every official save path keeps the content inside RedNote's ecosystem, which is the whole reason downloader tools exist.
The platform's terms, like those of every social network, give creators rights over their notes and expect users to respect them. That does not make saving a video for personal offline viewing a crime, but it does mean reuploading someone's note as your own content can get you reported and taken down. The Bellingcat open-source guide to Xiaohongshu is a useful second source here: it documents how note pages, profiles, and search are structured, which quietly confirms why generic downloaders struggle with the platform and why the app-first design is not an accident.
The practical takeaway from the official side is the same one that applies everywhere: use RedNote's own features for browsing and collecting inside the app, use a maintained desktop tool when you need the actual file, and treat any site that asks for your RedNote login as hostile. Paste links, not passwords. That one habit eliminates nearly every scam in this space.
Is saving RedNote videos legal?
Short version: it depends on what you do with the file, not on the act of saving it. Keeping a recipe video to cook from offline, archiving your own notes, or studying a tutorial frame by frame is generally low risk. Reuploading someone else's note wholesale as your own content, especially for commercial purposes, is where people run into copyright trouble, and creators on RedNote do file takedowns.
Practical rule of thumb: personal use and credited reposts with permission are safe territory. Straight reposts without credit are risky and bad manners. If you run a brand account and want to reuse a creator's note, ask first. Most small creators say yes when asked and get annoyed when not asked. Our disclaimer covers the details.
Watch: saving a RedNote video, start to finish
Sometimes it is easier to watch someone do it once than to read five written steps. The video below walks through the same copy-link-and-paste flow this guide describes: copying a public RedNote video link, pasting it into a downloader, picking the quality, and saving the original MP4. The tool on screen may differ from GrabMonkey, but the underlying steps are identical, and if you can follow along with this video, you already know how to use GrabMonkey.
Video by How to Download RedNote Videos Without Watermark | Free RedNote Downloader 2026 on YouTube, an independent creator not affiliated with GrabMonkey.
Quick questions
Is RedNote the same as Xiaohongshu?
Yes. RedNote is the English name for Xiaohongshu (also translated as Little Red Book). Same app, same content library. GrabMonkey saves video notes from it either way, whether your link comes from the Chinese app or the international RedNote app.
Do I need to log in to download a RedNote video?
No. For supported public notes, you paste the post link into GrabMonkey on your own PC and it downloads locally. No account, no login, and no exporting browser cookies.
Will the RedNote video keep its original quality?
Yes, when available. GrabMonkey grabs the original file rather than a re-encode, so the resolution matches what was posted and nothing is stamped on top. What you get is the best version RedNote published for that note.
Why do online RedNote downloaders keep failing?
RedNote wraps its videos in an app-first player that resists anonymous fetching, and it changes its page structure often. Web tools built for generic links either cannot read RedNote notes at all or hand back a shrunk-down copy. A desktop app on your own PC handles the link the same way every time, which is why it keeps working when web tools break.
Is it legal to download a RedNote video?
It depends on what you do with the file. Saving a clip for personal offline viewing is generally low risk. Reuploading someone else's video as your own without permission is not, and RedNote's terms back creators on that. When in doubt, keep it personal or get permission.