Abstract: BODIPY is one of the excellent fluorescent dyes and has been widely used in the past twenty years due to its outstanding optical features such as narrow emission peak，relatively high fluorescence quantum yield，high molar absorption coefficient，photo stability，and insensitivity to pH. In this paper，the origin，structure and basic fluorescence properties of BODIPY have been introduced. The progress in the application of fluorescent probes based on BODIPY in the detection of several cations，anions，benzyl thiol and various proteins in the last four years were reviewed through the mechanism analysis.

Key words: BODIPY, fluorescent probe, ion detection, small molecule detection, protein detection