The infrared radiation observation experiment were carried out in the uniaxial loading process of four sandstones with different water contents. By studying the quantitative relationship between the infrared radiation information and stress of water?bearing sandstone, the influence of water on the infrared radiation characteristics of sandstone was revealed. The results show that with the increase of water content, the size of sandstone infrared anomaly area was larger, and the infrared anomaly phenomenon was more obvious. The mean value of infrared radiation counts of sandstone increased with the increase of the mean value of stress, and there was a linear relationship between them. After fitting the mean value of infrared radiation counts with the mean value of stress, it is found that the slope increases gradually with the increase of water content. The mean value of infrared radiation counts of sandstone was moderately correlated with water content in compaction and elastic stage, and highly linear correlation in plastic stage and post?peak failure stage (correlation coefficient up to 0.96).