As a class of porous polymeric materials constructed by the conjugated building blocks, conjugated nanoporous polymers (CNPs) exhibit open framework structures, high surface areas, permanent micro-or mesopores, conjugated skeletons, and the flexible molecular design from predefined building blocks for both porous skeleton and pore surface. Therefore, they offer a promising platform as a class of ideal host matrices for immobilization/entrapment of guest molecules or materials at molecular and nanoscale level. Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries are regarded as a kind of promising high-density energy-storage technology due to their relatively high theoretical capacity, low cost and environmental benignity. However, one of the critical problems is the shuttling of soluble polysulfides in organic electrolyte derived from stepwise redox transformation between S and Li2S, giving rise to the rapid capacity fading. Constructing sulfur hosts with efficient polysulfides immobilization ability is critical to make a breakthrough in Li-S batteries. Using CNPs as host materials is a feasible strategy, which benefitted from their unique structural features. Compared to traditional polymers, CNPs have sufficient nanopores, which can provide space to load sulfur and physical confinement towards polysulfides, thus restricting the dissolution and shuttle of polysulfides. Moreover, by designing special functionalities either on the pore skeleton or on the pore wall, chemical interactions/affinities with polysulfides can be created in CNPs. As a result, both physical confinements and chemical adsorption can be simultaneously realized so as to further inhibit the shuttle effect, thus improving the performance of Li-S batteries. This review summarizes the progress of CNPs used in Li-S batteries in recent years, focuses on the strategies of CNPs in preventing shuttle effect and boosting performance of Li-S batteries, and finally presents a perspective on the future development in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]