Tool wear and poor surface quality are the remarkable problems in high speed machining, which is the primary processing method for materials difficult to machine. In recent years, surface texturing technologies have attracted a great deal of attention owing to the function of friction control, wear reduction and lubrication improvement. It also provides a new direction for the research on technology to reduce the tool wear. Surface texture effect should be thermodynamics effect of which frictional wear and lubrication property will vary with micro-grooves and micro-dimples machined on the friction surface with diverse geometric shape parameters and distribution characteristics. Focusing on the surface texture technology applied on the tool, this paper firstly described the fabricating methods of tool texture, and compared the advantages and disadvantages of all methods. It then elaborated the development and perspective of this technique used in tool wear reduction and processing quality improvement from the aspects of micro-grooves, micro-dimples, micro/nano hybrid textures and textured self-lubricating tools. In addition, the reason and mechanism of improving the tribological properties were analyzed for tool system. Finally, the problems with the research on tool surface texture technology and its importance to tool wear reduction were pointed out.