A projector and a brightness adjusting method are provided. The projector includes a distance sensor configured to detect a distance between the projector and a projection plane, a light source configured to provide an illumination beam, a brightness controlling circuit configured to control the light source, and a processor coupled to the distance sensor, the light source, and the brightness controlling circuit. The processor calculates according to the distance to obtain an image size of a projected image on the projection plane. The processor obtains a current value corresponding to the image size according to a color table. The processor instructs the light source to adjust a luminous flux of the illumination beam according to the current value for generating a target brightness value of the projected image. When a brightness of the projected image is excessively large, a brightness of an image beam of the projector is automatically reduced.