Autophagy is a highly conserved degradation process that targets cytoplasmic components, maintains metabolic stability in cells, and combates infection with various pathogenic bacteria. Autophagy can help body to eliminate invading pathogens; however, some bacteria have evolved multiple strategies to interfere with the autophagy signaling pathway or inhibit the fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes to form autolysosomes to escape autophagic degradation, and even use autophagy to promote their growth and proliferation. This review discusses the newest progress in the relationship between pathogens and autophagy of host cell, and the role of autophagy in bacterial infection. We hope that this review provides useful knowledge for the research on autophagy caused by pathogenic infection.