The earliest research of magnetic surgery was the application of magnetic anastomotic device to anastomose the blood vessels. Now, it has been widely used for anastomosis of blood vessels, gastrointestinal tract and biliary tract. The concept of "magnetic surgery" was named firstly by LU Yi in 2010 and magnetic surgery was classified into magnetic anchoring technique, magnetic navigation technique, magnetic compression technique, magnetic tracing technique, and magnetic suspension technique. The applications of magnetic surgery in the field of thoracic surgery mainly include magnetic compression technique, magnetic anchoring technique and magnetic navigation technique. This paper summarizes the application of magnetic surgery in thoracic surgery and prospects its future development in the field of thoracic surgery.