Abstract An approximate iterative operator method in wavenumber domain was proposed to improve the stability and accuracy of downward continuation of potential fields measured from the ground surface, marine or airborne. Firstly, the generalized iterative formula of downward continuation is derived in wavenumber domain; then, the transformational relationship between horizontal second-order partial derivatives and continuation is derived based on the Taylor series and Laplace equation, to obtain an approximate operator. By introducing this operator to the generalized iterative formula, a rapid algorithm is developed for downward continuation. The filtering and convergence characteristics of this method are analyzed for the purpose of estimating the optimal interval of number of iterations. We demonstrate the proposed method on synthetic data, and the results validate the flexibility of the proposed method. At last, we apply the proposed method to real data, and the results show the proposed method can enhance gravity anomalies generated by concealed orebodies. And in the contour obtained by making our proposed method results continue upward to measured level, the numerical results have approximate distribution and amplitude with original anomalies.