The invention belongs to the field of electronic device appearance detection, and aims at avoiding large fluctuation and uncertainty caused by manual lithium battery cell appearance quality checking.Accordingly, lithium battery cell appearance detection equipment and an appearance detection method are provided. The appearance equipment comprises a conveying device, an irradiation device, an imagecollecting device and a sorting device. The appearance detection method comprises the steps that the upper surface and the lower surface of a to-be-detected cell are irradiated; the appearance information of the upper surface and the lower surface of the to-be-detected cell is collected; and whether the cell is qualified or not is judged on the basis of the appearance information. By means of thelithium battery cell appearance detection equipment and the appearance detection method, the cell quality detection work efficiency is improved, the detection result is more stable and reliable, andcell appearance quality checking fluctuation and uncertainty are avoided.