A high performance liquid chromatographic method was established for the simultaneous detection of contents of sixteen food additives,including acesulfame K,saccharin sodium,benzoic acid,sorbic acid,dehydroacetic acid,new red,fancy red,tartrazine,amaranth,carmine,sunset yellow,brilliant blue,erythrosine,methyl p hydroxybenzoate,ethyl p hydroxybenzoate and propyl p hydroxybenzoate,in preserved fruits.The sixteen food additives were separated on an Athena C18 wp column （4.6 mm×250 mm,5 μm） by gradient elution using methanol-0.02 mol/L ammonium acetate as mobile phase,and analyzed with a diode array detector. The calibration curves were linear in the concentration range of 1-100 mg/L,with correlation coefficient not less than 0.999 88 and LOD of 0.016-0.45 mg/L.The relative standard deviations（n=10） of the method was between 0.14% and 1.5%,and the spiked recoveries of sixteen compounds in preserved fruits ranged from 76% to 106%.The method was suitable for the analysis of food additives contents in preserved fruits with good accuracy and precision.