Cold filamentary microplasma (CFM) pretreatment combined with infrared (IR)dryer was implemented, and its effect on drying efficiency (i.e., (drying) kinetics and moisture diffusivity) and quality attributes (i.e., total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), antioxidant activity (AOA), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), color, and FT-IR spectra) of apple slices (5, 7, and 10 mm thicknesses) were examined. Results showed the electrically induced channels in the CFM-pretreated samples appeared as a tree-like structure. Besides the drying time decreases of 18.0%, 13.0%, and 10.5% that respectively occurred at CFM-pretreated IR-dried apple slices thicknesses 5, 7, and 10 mm, the browning therein appeared as the main visual effect with reduced total specific energy consumption. CFM-pretreatment enhanced the dried apple slices’ quality via increasing TPC, TFC, and AOA respectively ranging 2.5–14.3%, 19.1–25.9%, and 8.3–35.4%. Additionally, the detected chemical compounds corroborated the FT-IR spectral peaks. •Cold filamentary microplasma (CFM) pretreatment and infrared (IR) drying were combined.•Drying efficiency and quality attributes of CFM pre-treated IR dried apple slices were investigated.•CFM pre-treated IR drying appear more effective on thin apple tissue thicknesses.•CFM pre-treated IR drying is promising to sustain the apple slice quality.