Abstract The present study was aimed at the identification of antimicrobial components from Araucaria cunninghamii with an activity-guided purification process. Eight compounds were obtained from the most active n-BuOH fraction and identified as the new compound 4-n-butoxyl-phenylpropanetriol (1), together with seven known compounds (2–8). These compounds were tested for antimicrobial activities against five bacteria and four plant pathogenic fungi. Within the series of compounds tested, compound 2 was the most active, particularly displaying moderate antibacterial activities against Erwinia carotovora and Bacillus subtilis with MICs 7.8 and 15.5 μg/ml. Moreover, this compound exhibited inhibitory activities against four plant pathogenic fungi: Helminthosporium sativum, Rhizoctonia solani, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Niveum and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense, with EC50 values of 42.3, 90.0, 62.7 and 100.2 μg/ml. To our knowledge, this is the first report that the n-BuOH fraction and compound 2 from A. cunninghamii showed inhibitory activity against plant pathogenic fungi.