N-Acyl-N,O-acetals are key component a variety of bioactive natural products. Furthermore, they are synthetic equivalents of unstable N-acylimines and building blocks in organic synthesis. Tremendous efforts have been made to the synthesis of such acetals, these methods can roughly be classified into two categories: electrochemical oxidation and chemical methods. Herein, we want to summarize the progress made on the preparation of the subunits, which may provide assistance for the development of new synthetic methods of N-acyl-N,O-acetals.