Nanopipette provides a promising confined space, which exhibits advances in electrochemical, optical and mass spectrometric measurements at the nanoscale. It has been employed to reveal the hidden population properties and dynamics of single molecules and single particles. Moreover, new detection mechanisms developed on nanopipette lead to the discovery of detailed single cell information at high spatial and high temporal resolution. Herein, we focus on the fabrication and characterization of nanopipettes, summarize their wide applications for single entity analysis, and conclude with an outlook for advanced practical sensing.