Within this class of compounds, the chemical is categorized as a trisubstituted aromatic aldehyde.

3,4,5-Trimethoxybenzaldehyde can be used as an intermediate in the synthesis of some pharmaceutical drugs including trimethoprim,[1][2] cintriamide, roletamide, trimethoquinol (aka tretoquinol), and trimazosin as well as some psychedelic phenethylamines.

[3][4][5] For industrial applications the chemical is synthesized from p-cresol using aromatic substitution with bromine followed by nucleophilic substitution with sodium methoxide.

[1] Oxidation of the methyl group to an aldehyde can occur via various synthetic methods.

At the laboratory scale the chemical is conveniently synthesized from vanillin[6] or from Eudesmic acid's Acyl chloride via Rosenmund reduction.