The invention belongs to the technical field of coal liquefaction, and more particularly relates to a method for directly liquefying coal by adopting methanol as a hydrogen carrier. The solved technical problem is to provide a direct coal liquefaction method adopting methanol as a hydrogen carrier, wherein the method has characteristics of low reaction pressure and low cost. The adopted technical scheme comprises: crushing raw material coal, uniformly mixing the crushed raw material coal, a solvent and a pyrolysis catalyst, uniformly mixing a cracking catalyst and an auxiliary catalyst, and conveying the mixed catalyst to a reactor filled with the pyrolysis materials, such that the pyrolysis materials are subjected to a reaction under catalysis of the mixed catalyst and enter the pyrolysis reactor through the self-pressure so as to liquefy the coal, wherein the pyrolysis reactor reaction temperature is 280-450 DEG C, the reaction pressure is 1-7 MPa, and the reaction time is 30-120 min. The method is widely used in the technical field of coal liquefaction.