Abstract: Ion mobility spectrometry(IMS)is an analytical technique that separates sample ions based on their ion mobility velocity,which has various advantages of rapid response,highly sensitive,easy and simple operation with low price. The basic principles of IMS and its variants are introduced,the coupled techniques(such as GC-IMS,IMS-MS)are generalized briefly,and the up-to-date applications of IMS in food flavor analysis over the past few years are summarized. Among these,the evaluation of the degree of freshness of meat,aquatic food,fruits and so on,the quantification of the odorants which product the "off-flavor" in wine,the on-line monitoring of the beer fermentation process,the classification of olive oil and cheese grades,the inspection of edible oil adulteration,the identification of Iberian pork and ham and the production process control of other food. Morever,it points out that IMS has a good application prospect in the field of food flavor analysis to provide guidance for the future analysis of food flavor.