Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a serious complication of diabetes mellitus and one of the main causes of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). There are many factors causing the progression of DN. Lipid metabolism disorder is a common clinical manifestation of DN, and ectopic renal lipid deposition was recently proposed as a key factor promoting the development of DN. Lipophagy is a newly discovered type of selective autophagy, that can remove excessive lipids in cells in time to maintain lipid homeostasis in cells. Recently, abnormalities in lipophagy have also been implicated in the progression of DN. Here, we discuss the formation of lipid droplets, describe lipophagy and its key regulatory signals, summarize the current research progress of lipophay in DN, and finally propose on lipophagy may be a potential target for the treatment of DN.Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.