Du Fort–Frankel-type finite difference methods (DFFT-FDMs) are famous for good stability and easy implementation. In this study, by a perfect combination of the classical fourth-order difference to approximate the second-order spatial derivatives with the idea of DFFT-FDMs, a class of high-order structure-preserving DFFT-FDMs (SP-DFFT-FDMs) are firstly developed for solving the periodic initial–boundary value problems (PIBVPs) of one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) nonlinear Schrödinger equations with wave operator (NLSW), respectively. By using the discrete energy method, it is shown that their solutions satisfy the discrete energy- and mass-conservative laws, and are conditionally convergent with an order of O(τ2+hx4+(τhx)2) and O(τ2+hx4+hy4+(τhx)2+(τhy)2) in the discrete H1-norm, respectively. Here, τ denotes time step size, while, hx and hy represent spatial mesh sizes in x and y directions, respectively. Then, by supplementing a stabilized term, a type of stabilized SP-DFFT-FDMs are devised. They not only preserve the discrete energy- and mass-conservation laws, but also own much better stability than original SP-DFFT-FDMs. Finally, numerical results confirm the theoretical findings, and the efficiency of our algorithms.