Abstract This in-depth review covers recent developments in the area of metal dipyrrinato complexes based on dipyrrins, a unique class of compounds which have fascinated the scientific community due to their ease of syntheses, interesting photophysical properties, and diverse architectures arising from self-assembly. Dipyrrins can form stable, highly crystalline and neutral complexes with a various metal ions however underdeveloped photochemistry and photophysics of these compounds have limited their technological applications. Recently, the area of metal dipyrrin complexes has witnessed a large surge due to their promising use in the development of bright and stable emitters which find wide applications in sensing, materials science, generation of infinite architecture through self-assembly, and catalysis. In the present review, Section 2 describes syntheses of dipyrrins and their analogues; Section 3 covers the geometrical consideration of metal-dipyrrin complexes. Section 4 focuses on synthesis, while Section 5 includes properties of metal-dipyrrin complexes and their applications in sensing, supra-molecular assembly, coordination polymers, anticancer agents, nanotechnology and catalysis.