The disadvantage of time-consuming and fussy steps of conventional silver-stained method for polyacrylamide gels is evident, and has become the choke point in its application. In this paper, a low-background and high-resolution contracted silver-stained method for polyacrylamide gels was established. Compared with the conventional banding method, this contracted method has fewer steps and needs fewer reagents, in particular, lower NaOH concentration. It is rapid and economic, especially for mass silver-staining.