The you only look once (YOLO) series of deep learning-based object identification algorithms has several advantages, including great adaptability, high detection accuracy, and quick detection speed. Make it the preferred choice for object detection in drone aerial images. Due to the complex and ever-changing nature of aerial images and videos captured by drones, the YOLO series object detection algorithms from the UAV vision have become a challenging problem. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively summarize and analyze the recent research and application achievements of YOLO series algorithms for object detection from the UAV vision. Firstly, the YOLO structural diagram is redrawn and the development, connection, and optimization features of the 10 fundamental versions of YOLO are summarized. The roles and objectives of various YOLO optimization strategies are pointed out, indicating the direction for further theoretical research. Secondly, the optimization methods of YOLO in the application field of drone object detection are summarized. This includes preprocessing before data training, optimization of training and inference, application of attention modules, convolutional optimization, detection heads, and optimization of loss functions. At the same time, some application datasets and data expansion methods from the UAV vision are sorted out. Through studies, the effectiveness of YOLO series algorithms on the UAV vision dataset and the influence of convolutional block attention module (CBAM) on various YOLO improvements are assessed. Finally, it is pointed out that there are still some problems and challenges in the research of YOLO series algorithms for object detection from the UAV vision. This article looks forward to possible development trends and research directions in this field.