The heat moisture treatment refers to the relative lower humidity and temperature in a certain time, and it is a physical modification method of starch properties change. This method costs lower and avoid the pollution by chemical modification, and achieve the purpose of improving starch specific features, which has been showing a good application prospect in modified starch. This paper introduces the effects on the starch structure and properties by heat moisture treatment in detail, and finally expounds the mechanism of the heat moisture treatment starch and the research progress in food applications.