The development of optical sensors using carbohydrates for selective detection of copper in water and living system has been an active research area in the past few years because of widespread applications and biological importance of copper. Introduction of carbohydrate to design the sensors is an attractive field of research because of its chiral entities with hydroxyl groups and oxygen atoms, controlled ring-flipping capability, abundance, and biocompatibility. This minireview focuses on the reported carbohydrate-based fluorescent and colorimetric sensors for Cu²⁺ detection and is organized according to their structural categories such as triazole-linked, imine-linked, and non–triazole-/imine-linked carbohydrate–based sensors. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review article focused on carbohydrate-based Cu²⁺ sensors.