Abstract. A modification of the generalized shift-splitting (GSS) method is presented for solving singular saddle point problems. In this kind of modification, the diagonal shift matrix is replaced by a block diagonal matrix which is symmetric positive definite. Semiconvergence of the proposed method is investigated. The induced preconditioner is applied to the saddle point problem and the preconditioned system is solved by the restarted generalized minimal residual method. Eigenvalue distribution of the preconditioned matrix is also discussed. Finally some numerical experiments are given to show the effectiveness and robustness of the new preconditioner. Numerical results show that the modified GSS method is superior to the classical GSS method.