Welding spatter cause many problems during the welding process and this issue is particularly important for cellulose electrode welding. The hot flying spatter balls often deteriorate the working environment, and decrease the welding efficiency. Many factors affect the welding spatter, and metal transfer behavior is one of the main factors. Many studies concing the spatter mechanism in arc welding process were made; most of them focused on the solid wire welding and the study on cellulose electrode is rarely reported. In this paper the metal transfer behavior and the weld spatter characteristics of three commercial cellulose electrodes were studied experimentally by using a high speed camera for visually capturing the metal transfer. The relationship between the metal transfer and the welding spatter was analyzed experimentally by comparing the spatter loss coefficient, which is for quantitative evaluation of welding spatter, with the statistical analysis of the large droplet transfer mode. The results showed that short circuiting transfer, large droplet spray transfer, fine droplet spray transfer and explosive transfer gov the metal transfer modes in cellulose electrode welding. Weld spatter occurred mainly in the deflection of large droplet process, explosive transfer process and fine droplet spraying process. Different metal transfer modes lead to different spatter. The deflection of large droplet and explosive transfer are the main factors of the spatter formation. Minimizing the droplet size and reducing the deflection of large droplet and explosive transfer leads to the reduction the amount of spatter in cellulose electrode welding.