This study aims to explore the potential application value of citral in the drought resistance of plants. Different concentrations of citral were used to treat Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings, and it was found that the survival rate of Arabidopsis thaliana treated with 200 μmol/L citral under subsequent drought stress was up to 80%, while that of the control group without citral treatment was only about 40%. The results of transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) showed that there were 230 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between seedlings treated with and without 200 μmol/L citral. DEGs were significantly enriched in the response to stimulus and protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum, respectively, in GO term and KEGG pathway, and most of 129 up-regulated genes were related to the heat shock proteins. Four of them (AT1G07400, AT2G26150, AT4G25200, AT4G12400) were selected for RT-qPCR verification, and the gene expression level reflected by RT-qPCR was consistent with the RNA-seq data. The results of this study indicated that the drought resistance was obtained in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings treated with 200 μmol/L citral, which may be realized by heat shock proteins to restore the physiologically active state of functional proteins that partially unfolded under subsequent drought stress conditions, thereby acquiring better tolerance and resistance to drought stress.