In order to improve the hot-air drying efficiency and product quality， the drying characteristics and quality changes of Huangshan stinky mandarin fish were investigated at different drying temperatures (55， 65， 75， 85 ℃ and 95 ℃). The results showed that the effective moisture diffusion coefficient (Deff) of stinky mandarin fish ranged from 2.8848×10-10 m2/s to 8.8663×10-10 m2/s in the range of 55-95 ℃. The higher temperature led to higher effective water diffusion coefficient， and its diffusion activation energy (Ea) was 27.9370 kJ/mol. The data fitting result showed that Page model could accurately describe the water migration during hot-air drying of stinky mandarin fish. Drying temperature had significant effect on the quality of stinky mandarin fish. When the temperature was 75 ℃， the fish rehydration ratio was the largest at 3.03±0.13， the peptide content was the highest at (3.79±0.25) g/100 g， and with the most significant antioxidant effect. The texture characterization and overall quality of 75 ℃ were relatively better. This research preliminarily revealed the correlation between drying characteristics and quality of stinky mandarin fish， which could provide theoretical reference for the optimization of quality control during the drying process of Huangshan stinky mandarin fish.