Abstract To address the issue that the deep learning-based denoising algorithms can hardly effectively eliminate the background noise under small sample data condition, this paper proposes a new denoising method based on spectral subtraction (SS) and least mean square (LMS) adaptive filtering algorithms. To achieve the adaptive selection for the parameters of SS and LMS algorithms, particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach is employed to search and optimize the parameters in the two algorithms, which is helpful for the two algorithms to play an important role in eliminating the noise components with the different properties. Subsequently, the SS algorithm and the LMS algorithm are appropriately combined, and the SS-processed signal is input into the LMS algorithm as a desired signal to actualize the LMS adaptive filtering function. In this way, the denoising performance of both algorithms can be maximally utilized, which achieves effective noise reduction in vibration signal. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method are validated through simulation data and rolling bearing experiment data, respectively. The results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly diminishes noise components and retains precise and reliable fault features under small sample data condition, which provides an effective denoising method for rolling bearing vibration signals under small sample data condition in practical engineering scenarios.