Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are an emerging class of porous crystalline materials assembled by symmetric and rigid organic building blocks through strong covalent bonds. COFs have attractive properties such as highly tunable porosity, ordered channels, optional building blocks, predictable control of structures, easy to functionalize. Until now, COFs have attracted increasing attention from researchers due to their versatile applications in analytical chemistry. This review provides a comprehensive overview covering COFs and their applications as materials in separation (solid-phase extraction, membrane separation and chromatographic separation) and their roles in analysis (chemical sensing, spectral detection and visual detection). Moreover, we discuss the interaction principles between COFs and target compounds. This review also discusses improvements in performance of COFs over conventional materials when they are used in analytical chemistry. Lastly, we discuss current challenges and possible trends for applications of COFs in analytical chemistry. •The applications of COFs in separation included solid-phase extraction, membrane separation and chromatographic separation.•The applications of COFs in analysis covered chemical sensing, spectral detection and visual detection.•Interaction principles between COFs and target compounds were involved.•Improvements in performance for application of COFs over conventional materials in analytical chemistry were also discussed.