Huawei AppGallery: How to Reply to Reviews (and Use the Reply API)
Huawei AppGallery lets you answer reviews in the console or via a real Connect reply API — 800 chars, no off-Huawei links. The how-to for global publishers.
The Argus Team
Reply Argus
You reply to a Huawei AppGallery review one of two ways: inside the AppGallery Connect console, or through Huawei's Connect API — a genuine, documented REST endpoint that reads your reviews and posts replies programmatically. Replies cap at 800 characters and can't point users off Huawei's own channels. That's the short answer.
The longer point is the one most developers miss. When people ask about answering reviews on the "other" stores, the honest answer is usually "you can monitor, but there's no real reply API." AppGallery breaks that pattern. It has a first-class Comments API, the same category of tool as App Store Connect's and Google Play's, which makes it a store you can actually automate, not just watch. Below: how to reply by hand, how the API works, the exact character rule, and where Huawei fits if you publish globally.
Why bother with AppGallery reviews at all?
Because a slice of your users can't reach you anywhere else. Since the US placed Huawei on its entity list in May 2019, Huawei phones released after that ship without Google Mobile Services — no Google Play, no Play Store reviews. On those devices, AppGallery is the default first-party store, and an AppGallery review is the only public feedback channel that user has. Ignore it and you're ignoring a market that literally cannot leave you a Play Store review.
That market skews toward China and a set of emerging regions where Huawei hardware stayed strong, so the reviews you get on AppGallery often arrive in languages and with expectations your App Store queue never surfaces. AppGallery is one of the largest app marketplaces outside Google's, serving hundreds of millions of Huawei-device users worldwide. Whatever the exact figure this year, the practical read is the same: if your app is on AppGallery, those reviews move a rating that real prospective users see, and nobody else is answering them for you.
How to reply in the AppGallery Connect console
The by-hand path lives in AppGallery Connect, Huawei's equivalent of App Store Connect and the Play Console. If you just want to answer a handful of reviews, you never touch the API.
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Step 1 — Open AppGallery Connect
Sign in at the AppGallery Connect console with an account that has permission on the app. Reviews live under the app's user-operations area, in the Comments (ratings and reviews) section.
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Step 2 — Find the review
Filter the comment list by rating or date and open the one you want to answer. Huawei shows the star rating, the review text, the device, and the app version it was left on — useful context for a grounded reply.
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Step 3 — Post your reply
Type your response in the reply field. You can reply to an original comment once; if the user replies back, you can respond again and edit those follow-ups. Your reply then shows both in AppGallery Connect and publicly on AppGallery, listed under your developer identity.
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Step 4 — Keep it inside the rules
Stay under 800 characters and don't route users to non-Huawei channels. That's a hard content rule, not a style tip; more on it below.
The AppGallery reply API, in practice
This is what makes AppGallery worth a developer's attention. Huawei's Connect API includes a Comments API that lets you pull the full comment list programmatically and post replies, the whole loop automated, the same way you would with the App Store Connect or Google Play reviews APIs. If you run reviews at any volume, or want an AI system drafting responses, this is the door.
Setup happens once. In AppGallery Connect you create an API client under the Connect API section: pick the Customer service role (that's the one scoped to review replies) and leave Project set to N/A so the client is created at team level. Tie it to a single project and the review-reply connection won't authenticate. Huawei hands you a Client ID and a Key. From there it's a two-call flow: exchange those for an access token (valid about 48 hours), then post your reply.
# 1. Get an access token (default validity ~48h)
POST https://connect-api.cloud.huawei.com/api/oauth2/v1/token
Content-Type: application/json
{ "grant_type": "client_credentials",
"client_id": "<API client ID>",
"client_secret": "<API client key>" }
# 2. Reply via the Comments API
# Send both the client_id header and the bearer token.
POST <Comments API reply endpoint>
client_id: <API client ID>
Authorization: Bearer <access_token>
Content-Type: application/json
{ "appId": "<your app id>",
"reviewId": "<the review's id>",
"responseContent": "Your reply — 800 chars max, no off-Huawei links" }One nice detail: your app's ID is used as the reply nickname and shown alongside your developer ID, so responses are unambiguously official. And unlike some stores, AppGallery lets you edit replies to a user's follow-up, so a conversation can actually evolve instead of freezing at your first take.
The 800-character rule has teeth — and a link ban
AppGallery caps a reply at 800 characters, counted excluding any URL, QQ account, or phone number. But the review guidelines are explicit that you must not lead users to non-Huawei channels in comments or replies. Replies may include a QQ account or an email address for support; a link steering someone to a competing store or an off-platform funnel is a policy problem, not just poor etiquette. Write the whole answer to live inside AppGallery.
How 800 characters compares to Apple and Google
AppGallery sits in the middle of the three stores on reply length, which is worth internalizing if you reuse copy across all of them. The same reply can't be pasted everywhere unchanged.
- Google Play — 350 characters, hard. The tightest of the three. Google truncates anything longer, so a Play reply has to be surgical. We break the per-store limits down in [the reply rules for every app store](/blog/reply-rules-for-every-app-store).
- Huawei AppGallery — 800 characters, excluding URLs, QQ, and phone numbers. Roughly double Play's budget, so you can name the bug, the fix version, and a next step without gutting the message.
- Apple App Store — no official published limit. Apple documents no hard number; community testing suggests a few thousand characters. Treat it as generous but not infinite, and never assume a specific cap.
- The cross-store trap. A reply drafted for Apple's roominess overflows both Google's 350 and Huawei's 800. Draft to the tightest store in a set, or draft per-store.
The store-by-store mechanics (limits, who can see the reply, how notifications fire) differ more than people expect. We map Apple against Google in detail in [App Store vs Google Play review replies](/blog/app-store-vs-google-play-review-replies), and the same lesson extends to AppGallery: know each store's rules before you automate against them. The link ban in particular echoes a question we get constantly, covered in [what links are allowed in review replies](/blog/what-links-are-allowed-in-review-replies).
What a good AppGallery reply actually looks like
The craft is identical to any store: anchor the reply in the reviewer's exact words and a real build. Here's a two-star AppGallery review and a reply that fits inside 800 characters, names the version, and never points off Huawei.
Latest update won't let me sign in with my Huawei ID — just spins forever on the login screen. Was fine last week. Mate 50 Pro.
The endless spin on the login screen in 5.3 was a token-refresh bug that only hit Huawei ID sign-in on HarmonyOS builds. You're right that last week's version worked, and it shouldn't have shipped. 5.3.1 is in AppGallery review now and fixes it. If you can't wait, force-stopping the app and reopening clears the stuck session on most Mate 50 devices. If anything's still broken after you update, reply here and we'll dig into your case directly. — Wei, [App] team
That reply borrows the reviewer's own phrase ("spins forever"), names the version that broke and the version that fixes it, gives an immediate workaround, and keeps the whole conversation inside AppGallery. It's also the kind of specific, sincere response that measurably helps: Google's own I/O 2019 data showed apps that respond to reviews gain about +0.7 stars on average, and the effect isn't Google-specific — replying like a human who read the review is what moves ratings on any store. We lay out that evidence in [does replying to app reviews raise your rating](/blog/does-replying-to-app-reviews-raise-your-rating).
The wrinkle on AppGallery is language. Your reviews land in Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and more, often on the same day. A reply that reads as machine-translated boilerplate lands worse than no reply at all. Answering each reviewer in their own language, fluently, is the real work — we get into it in [replying to app reviews in any language](/blog/reply-to-app-reviews-in-any-language).
Does ReplyArgus support Huawei AppGallery?
Straight answer: no. [ReplyArgus](/features) connects to the Apple App Store and Google Play only. It does not read from or reply to Huawei AppGallery today, and we're not going to imply it does — AppGallery has its own Connect API, and wiring to it is a build we haven't shipped. If your reviews are on Huawei, that half stays a hands-on job in AppGallery Connect for now.
What does transfer is everything this guide is about. On the two stores ReplyArgus covers, it watches every new review in one inbox, drafts each reply grounded in your past approved replies plus an auto-ingested knowledge base of your store listing, and writes back in the reviewer's own language across 100+ languages — the exact cross-language problem AppGallery throws at you, solved on Apple and Google. Nothing posts until you approve it, or until a rule you set does. So the practical move for a global publisher is: put your App Store and Play reviews on rails, and keep AppGallery on your manual list until it's automated too.
Automate the two stores you can, today
Connect the App Store and Google Play and ReplyArgus drafts grounded, on-brand replies you approve in one click — in every language your users write in, within each store's character limit. Free plan, no card: [start free](/signup).
Frequently asked
- Does Huawei AppGallery have a reply API?
- Yes. AppGallery Connect includes a Comments API within Huawei's Connect API that lets you query the full review list and post replies programmatically. You authenticate with an API client (Client ID and Key) using the Customer service role, exchange those for an access token, then call the reply endpoint.
- What is the character limit for an AppGallery review reply?
- 800 characters, counted excluding any URL, QQ account, or phone number. That's roughly double Google Play's hard 350-character cap and sits below the App Store, which publishes no official limit. Write your reply to fit inside 800 for AppGallery.
- Can I put a link in a Huawei AppGallery reply?
- Not one that leads off Huawei. AppGallery's guidelines prohibit directing users to non-Huawei channels in comments or replies. You can include a support email or a QQ account, but a link steering users to another store or an external funnel violates policy. Keep the answer resolvable inside AppGallery.
- How do I reply to AppGallery reviews without the API?
- Use the AppGallery Connect console. Open your app's Comments (ratings and reviews) section, find the review, and post a reply in the field. You can reply to an original comment once and respond again to any follow-up the user leaves. The reply appears on AppGallery under your developer identity.
- Why do AppGallery reviews matter if my app is also on Google Play?
- Because Huawei phones released after May 2019 ship without Google Mobile Services, so those users can't leave a Play Store review at all. On Huawei devices, AppGallery is the default store and its reviews are the only public feedback channel those users have. Ignoring them means ignoring a market that can't reach you elsewhere.
- Does ReplyArgus work with Huawei AppGallery?
- No. ReplyArgus monitors and drafts replies for the Apple App Store and Google Play only, not AppGallery. The reply craft — grounding each response in the review and the fix, answering in the user's language — is identical across stores, but AppGallery replies are handled by hand in AppGallery Connect or via Huawei's own Connect API.
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