In the process of processing, transportation and storage, milk is prone to photosensitive oxidation, resulting in quality degradation and rancid odor, which seriously restricts the shelf life of products and threatens the health of consumers. In this paper, the photophysical properties of photosensitizers such as riboflavin, chlorophyll and protoporphyrin were systematically analyzed, and the reaction mechanism of milk fat hydroperoxide formation and milk protein cross-linking denaturation was elucidated. The effects of heat treatment, homogenization, ultrasonic, spray drying and other processing techniques on light scattering characteristics and photosensitizer microenvironment were reviewed. The prevention and control effects of different types of packaging and monitoring and prediction technologies based on characteristic volatile markers were summarized. Different from the existing single-link research, this paper innovatively constructs a full-chain coupling perspective of molecular mechanism-process intervention-packaging adaptation, which provides a systematic theoretical basis for precise resistance control and high-quality processing of dairy photosensitive oxidation.