The invention discloses a pulsating heavy medium shallow slot sorting device and method, which are suitable for the field of coal sorting. The pulsating heavy medium shallow slot sorting device comprises a sorting slot body, a guide part, a transmission part, a funnel part, an air valve transmission device, an air chamber, a centralized lubrication device and the like. After feed coal enters a sorting machine, the feed coal is divided into float and sediment according to the density under the combined action of horizontal flow and pulsating water flow, wherein the float is conveyed to an overflow weir by the horizontal flow and is discharged, the sediment sinking to the bottom is lifted to the head of the slot body through the curvilinear motion of a scraping plate, falls under a slate chute, and is hung to a discharge opening by a scraper conveyer so as to be discharged, and thus, the separation of light and heavy products is completed. The pulsating heavy medium shallow slot sortingdevice has reasonable design, can realize the sufficient loosing and layering of the feed coal, can keep suspension liquid in a suspension state, is beneficial to the improvement of the sorting precision of the sorting machine, reduces the medium consumption, and can further reduce the lower limit of sorting.