•Thermal characterization of centrifuged aromatic citrus oils was studied.•Thermal lens (TL) and open photoacoustic cell (OPC) were used for characterization.•Thermal diffusivity, thermal effusivity and thermal conductivity were obtained.•Thermal effusivity and conductivity of green mandarin oil is first time reported.•Absorption coefficients and chemical structure of the citrus oils were determined. In this work, thermal characterization of centrifuged aromatic citrus oils was studied using thermal lens (TL) and open photoacoustic cell (OPC). The thermal diffusivity (D) was obtained by TL, fitting the critical time parameter of the experimental curves to the theoretical values. An experimental arrangement of non-matched mode lasers with a probe and an excitation lasers was used. On the other hand, the thermal effusivity (e) of the samples was obtained by using OPC. The thermal conductivity (k) was calculated from the relationship between D and e. The thermal parameters obtained were compared with theoretical values ​​in the literature. UV–vis spectroscopy, Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and 1H Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) were used to determine the absorption coefficients and chemical structure of the citrus oils. The importance of this research work was the determination of the thermal parameters of essential oils as an alternative technique for quality control application.