It is very important to accurately extract the instantaneous frequency (IF) of complex non-stationary signals, so the signal processing methods based on IF are widely used in engineering. However, in non-stationary complex vibration signals, it is difficult to extract the instantaneous frequency under strong noise because the frequency changes rapidly. This paper proposes an improved multi-ridge extraction method based on differential synchro-squeezing wavelet transform (DSWT). First, an improved method DSWT is proposed to reduce the computation time and image noise of synchro-squeezing wavelet transform (SWT). The running time of the algorithm can be further reduced by segmenting the signal and compressing the time-frequency matrix. The image noise can be significantly reduced by differentiating SWT time-frequency matrix. It lays a good foundation for the extraction of the time-frequency ridge line. Secondly, an improved multi-ridge extraction method is proposed. The ridge jump due to end effect can be eliminated adaptively in segmented extraction. It further improves the time-frequency aggregation and extraction effect of the wavelet ridgeline image. Finally, the improved multi-ridge extraction method based on DSWT (DSWT-IMRE) is verified by the simulation data and experimental data under different conditions. Compared with the method proposed in previous study, the results show that DSWT-IMRE has higher extraction accuracy.