In this paper, based on the higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) variational equation, a unified solution for the transient state vibration problem of functionally graded porous (FGP) rectangular plates are proposed using the combination of Jacobi–Ritz method and multi-segment strategy. Using the artificial spring technique makes a FGP rectangular plate can be separated into several segments, which is proved to be helpful to improve the calculation accuracy of natural frequency. Some common boundary conditions are applied to the mode including classical boundary conditions and elastic boundary conditions. Three common types of porous distributions are considered which contain uneven symmetrical, uneven asymmetric and evenly distributions. Through the study of truncated numbers and continuous conditional parameters, it is found that the results have evident convergence. Moreover, the accuracy of this method is proved by comparison. On this premise, the effect of different parameters on the free vibration and pulsating forced vibration of FGP rectangular plates are briefly studied.