With the rapid growth of the elderly population in the world, the incident number of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is also increasing year by year. AD has become "the third biggest killer" to human health besides cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and cancers. The diagnosis and treatment of diseases are of equally significance. Generally, the diagnosis of AD relies upon the typical clinical features, neuroimaging techniques, and the detection of disease-related biomarkers. In recent years, proteomics and mass spectrometry technology have developed rapidly, which can be used to find specific disease-related proteins as biomarkers for early diagnosis. This review focused on the proteomics-based screening of diagnostic biomarkers and the mass spectrometry-based chromatographic technologies applied in the diagnosis of AD. 34 references are reviewed.