Terminal state displaying control method and device

The invention discloses a terminal state displaying control method and device for controlling state icons displayed by terminals such as a mobile phone and a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). The method comprises the steps that: a terminal monitors local software, detects a state icon generated after the software operates, and ranks the display control information of state icons corresponding to software in a state icon configuration list; and the terminal displays state icons corresponding to partial or whole software on a standby interface according to the setting of a user to the state icon configuration list. Thus, the problems that in the status bar, the representation information of the state icon displayed when a user downloads and installs application software and the state icon displayed by inherent terminal configuration is repeated are avoided, so that saving terminal screen resources are saved and the use of the user is more convenient and faster.