[Purpose/significance] Promoting the construction of elderly-friendly public cultural services is of great significance for enhancing the cultural sense of achievement and happiness of the elderly, and building a Chinese style active aging society. Systematically exploring the characteristics of current policies for elderly-friendly public cultural services in China, clarifying the structure and problems of policy tools, can provide reference for future policy optimiza⁃tion. [Method/process] This study constructs a three-dimensional analysis framework of“policy tools - elderly needspolicy implementers”from the perspective of policy tools, and uses content analysis to quantitatively analyze 66 policytexts released in China. [Result/conclusion] In terms of policy tools, supply oriented policy tools tend to focus on edu⁃cation and training, environmental policy tools have insufficient binding force, and the use of demand oriented policy tools is significantly insufficient. The attention of policy tools to the middle and low-level needs of elderly people should be strengthened. Policy tools have not fully utilized the functions of policy implementers. Based on this, the fol⁃lowing optimization strategies are proposed: (1)adjusting the layout of supply oriented policy subclasses to support the development of education and training; strengthening environmental policy tools and combining soft and hard measures⁃to create an elderly-friendly environment; enriching demand driven policy tools to attract multiple stakeholders to par⁃ticipate on a regular basis；(2)following the logic of low to high to meet the needs of the elderly；(3)promoting the diver⁃sification of policy implementers to fully leverage social forces.