Headspace gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (HS-GC-IMS) can accurately identify and quantify volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in agricultural products. Benefiting from its advantages such as fast response, high sensitivity, simple operation and low cost, HS-GC-IMS has developed rapidly in the field of flavor analysis of agricultural products. This paper systematically expounded the working principle of HS-GC-IMS and the feature extraction methods of its fingerprint profiles, and reviewed the application progress of this technology in common agricultural products including alcoholic beverages, fruits and vegetables, tea, oils and fats, dairy products and honey. It focused on research directions such as the classification and adulteration identification of agricultural products, the dynamic changes of volatile metabolites during processing and storage, the evaluation of freshness and spoilage and the traceability of off-flavors, and forecasted its future development trends. In summary, HS-GC-IMS has broad application potential in the research on the flavor of agricultural products. It can provide efficient and reliable analytical methods for the quality evaluation, quality control and flavor mechanism analysis of agricultural products, and is of great significance for promoting the innovation of agricultural product quality detection technologies and the high-quality development of the industry.