The brittleness and fracture behaviors of the sintered and the two-stage aged Dy-doped NdFeB magnets were studied by a unique method of acoustic emission testing and Vickers hardness indentation method in this paper. A detailed analysis on the crack propagation mechanism along the grain boundary of the main grain phase (Nd, Dy) 2 Fe 14 B was done. By comparing the acoustic emission energy count value (E n ) with the Vickers hardness indentation load (P), it is shown that there is a linear relationship between E n and P for both the sintered and the two-stage aged Dy-doped NdFeB magnets. According to the slope of E n versus P linear lines, it can be found that the two-stage aged Dy-doped NdFeB magnet is more brittle than the sintered one. It is due to that the Ndrich grain boundary phase of the two-stage aged Dy-doped NdFeB magnet is formed as thin film and uniformly distributes around the main grain phase, which plays a significant role in increasing the intrinsic coercive force of the magnet, but decreasing its interface binding strength. Therefore, the resistance of crack propagation along the grain boundary decreases and the brittleness increases.