What to know

  • Delete your Rednote account by tapping on the three horizontal lines in the top left corner, selecting Settings > Account Security > Account Cancellation.
  • As long as your phone is linked, you'll receive the OTP that will let you continue removing your Rednote account.
  • It's possible that you may run into a few issues that force you to link your number or to wait for the webpage to become available again.

While Rednote is on the rise amongst users in the US, there's some reason to be concerned about the speed with which TikTok refugees are flocking to it. It's not so much the Chinese ownership of the app or the fact that it's mostly in Mandarin (there's an easy fix for it), or even the fact that you can only change name if you login with your number - which are all legit reasons in themselves. It's the fact that once your account is created, deleting it is a complete mess.

While we've shown below exactly how you can delete your Rednote account, note that several errors can still come up and bar you from removing your account. We'll mention all the issues in a separate section so make sure to check that out too.

How to delete your Rednote account

Step 1: Open the Rednote account. Tap on the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines) in the top left corner. Then select Settings at the bottom.

Step 2: Tap Account Security. Then select Account Cancellation at the bottom.

Step 3: An OTP will be sent to the phone number linked to your account. Once you enter that, you'll be redirected to a new screen (with text in Mandarin). Here, place a check next to the 'Terms and conditions' option and then tap on the red button at the bottom.

Step 4: On the next screen, you'll be asked to choose a reason for your account cancellation. Again, this will all be in Mandarin. But it doesn't really matter which option you choose. So select any option and then tap on the red button at the bottom to confirm.

Your account should now be deleted in some time. However, you may come across a few issues (as did we) that have nothing to do with the language and everything to do with the app itself.

Issues deleting Rednote account

When you tap on the 'Account Cancellation' option, you may sometimes receive the Web page not available error page. In this case, you'll just have to wait a while and return to the account cancellation page after some time.

Another issue that you may face is a screen with two options (and all in Mandarin), which translate to - Facial Recognition Verification and National Online Identity Verification.

Now, both these options don't help us much to delete our Rednote account. In our case, the first option led us to another screen where we were asked to 'enter our real name and ID number' while the second option was not functional.

In any case, since we're not Chinese nationals, such options don't apply. So it appears that you'll only be able to delete your Rednote account if you've linked your phone number to it and where you can receive the OTP as mentioned in Step 3 above.

But the fact that you have to provide Rednote with your phone number in order to remove the account is a very suspicious tactic. The fact that it's another Chinese app doesn't help its case either. Unfortunately, as this is the game that most apps play anyway, there's not much you can do about it.