Considering the problem that the optical fibers prepared via the modified chemical vapor deposition method suffer from the restriction of limited variation range of fiber core components, the rapidly developed melt-in-tube (MIT) fiber drawing method is introduced. The recent progress in the preparation of special optical fibers based on the MIT method is summarized from the perspective of glass core fiber, semiconductor core fiber, and crystal core fiber. Further, the performances and applications of these optical fibers are also analyzed. Finally, the existing problems and development trend of this method are discussed from a practical perspective.