Abstract: To fast quantitatively characterize the content of shale free oil and absorbed oil is an important fundamental demand for evaluations on shale oil content and mobility, but bottlenecks still remain in terms of relevant experimental testing technique. On one hand, the loss of light oil is inevitable during the pretreatment of samples, thus leading to extremely low test results of free oil content; on the other hand, there is no clear physical and chemical boundary between free oil and absorbed oil in shale and there is certain dynamic transformation, so it is difficult to define and quantitatively characterize the oil contents accurately. In response to the above problems, we have performed experimental study and application demonstration for the three key technologies regarding preservation of shale core samples, pretreatment, and conditions for pyrolysis analysis of shale in the pyrolysis analysis test, and developed a set of pyrolysis analysis methods of shale oil content. This method has established the process of collection and low-temperature preservation of core samples, and developed the pretreatment and preparation technology of closed frozen samples to effectively avoid the loss of light oil; through optimizing the pyrolysis heating program, scientific quantitative characterization of shale oil and absorbed oil has been realized. At present, this method has been applied, verified and promoted in a number of oil fields.