The present invention discloses an application program switching method, relates to the data processing field, and is used to implement fast switching between application programs. According to a technical solution provided in the present invention, in response to a switching request, an application program association relationship is searched for a second application program that satisfies a requirement of a user, and the second application program is directly started, so that the user can start the second application program by sending the switching request only once. Embodiments of the present invention may be applied to an application program switching scenario.