Ginsenosides are an important kind of active ingredients in Panax genus and can be classified into four main types: the protopanaxadiols(PPD), protopanaxatriols(PPT), oleanolic acids(OA) and ocotillol type(OT). Recently, more than 620 kinds of these compounds have been isolated. Their chemical structures are similar but have quite different medicinal functions. It is of vital importance to develop simple and facile sample pretreatment methods and detection techniques to detect the content of ginsenosides in complex matrix. This review includes many kinds of sample pretreatment methods(such as liquid phase extraction, and solid phase extraction) and detection methods(such as high performance liquid chromatography, ultra-performance liquid chromatography, thin layer chromatography, and gas chromatography), etc., summarizes the sensitivity and recovery of various methods, and reviews the advantages and disadvantages of each method and its research progress.