Nanoscale mechanical testing has attracted increasing attention of researchers in recent years. Nanoindentor is widely used in micro/ nanoscale mechanical testing of material surface due to its high loading and displacement resolution, including hardness, elasticity modulus, plastic strain, combinative strength of film interface and fatigue properties of materials. In this paper, the methods and principles for several kinds of material mechanical property tests using nanoindentation and Nano-impact techniques were reviewed. Then many advanced applications of nanometer indentation technology in material mechanical property testing and its test mechanism were introduced, as well as the application and principle of atomic force microscopy and scanning probe microscopy testing in mechanical testing. Finally, the author put forward several existing problems of nanoindentor, and prospected the development of nanoindentation. It was found that establishment of material fatigue fracture model by nanoindentation technique in combination with the finite element simulation is the inevitable development trend of nanoindentation in mechanical testing.