Abstract: Potato tubers are prone to sprouting during the late storage and logistics, leading to nutrient loss, quality deterioration, and toxic glycoalkaloid accumulation. The sprout inhibition technologies widely used in industries have chemical residue issues. Therefore, developing green and safe sprout inhibition techniques has become the focus of research. In this study, 'Holland 15' potato tubers were applied and fumigated with 200 μL/kg to investigate the effects of nerol treatment on sprouting, quality attributes, hormones, and solanine content during storage at 20 °C for 20 days. The results showed that nerol treatment significantly delayed potato sprouting. Almost all potatoes from control group have sprouted on day 4 during storage, whereas potatoes from nerol-treated group exhibited slight sprouting on day 20, the sprouting rate and sprouting index of which were only 4.7% and 4% respectively. Nerol treatment significantly reduced weight loss rate and respiration intensity, better maintained ascorbic acid content, alleviated the accumulation of total soluble solids and the degradation of starch and protein, thereby preserving the nutritional quality of potatoes. Hormone metabolism analysis revealed that nerol treatment maintained high ABA levels and reduced GA₃ accumulation by regulating the expression of key genes in ABA and GA₃ synthesis and metabolic pathways, which thus resulted in a significant increase in the ABA/GA₃ ratio and maintained tuber dormancy. Furthermore, nerol treatment significantly inhibited solanine accumulation via downregulating the expression of key genes involved in solanine synthesis. By day 20 during storage, the solanine content in nerol-treated potatoes was only 75.5% of that in control potatoes. These results demonstrate that nerol treatment effectively delays potato sprouting and improves storage quality through synergistically regulating starch-sugar metabolism, protein metabolism, and endogenous hormone balance, while inhibiting the solanine biosynthesis. Nerol represents a safe and effective natural sprout inhibitor with promising application prospects in potato storage and preservation.