Promoting the upgrading of the quality of digital products export is an inherent requirement for China’s innovative development of digital trade, accelerate China’s transformation into a trader of quality, and an important means to achieve high-quality economic development. However, frequent trade frictions have intensified the uncertainty of China’s digital products export and quality improvement. Based on theoretical analysis, this article focuses on the core industries of the digital economy, uses data from January 2011 to December 2021 to empirically test the impact of trade frictions on the upgrade of digital products export quality, the mechanism of action and the moderating effect of Free Trade Agreement(FTA). The results demonstrated that, the increasing number and the deepening discrimination of trade frictions have significantly hindered the upgrading of the quality of China’s digital products export. Its main mechanism and channel are to push up the import price of intermediate goods and reduce the import quantity of intermediate good. joining the FTA can effectively alleviate the inhibitory effect of trade frictions on the upgrading of the quality of digital products export. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that, with the improvement of the quality of digital products export, the impact of trade frictions shows an “N” - shaped trend. The negative impact of non-tariff measures is greater than that of tariff measures. The number and discriminatory of trade frictions such as import and export policies, labor force migration policies, localization policies, subsidies and state aid policies, trade defence measures and other measures are not conducive to the upgrading of the export quality of digital products. The negative impact of trade frictions not specifically aimed at specific products is stronger, but in recent years, trade frictions that specifically target digital products have a gradually significant impact. The obstructive effect of trade frictions initiated by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) members is greater than that of non-OECD members.