A permission management method for an electronic device capable of installing at least one application is illustrated. The electronic device comprises a plurality of accessible operational functions. The method prepares a management table for recording corresponding operational functions that the application needs to access while performing the application, and a permission management program for controlling the management table. The permission management program may be performed to change the permission state of each operational function corresponding to the installed application. When the application installed in the device is performed and one of the operational functions is requested, the records in the management table are referred to determine whether the application is allowed to access the requested operational function.