Objectives To visualize and quantitatively assess regional lung function of survivors of COVID-19 who were hospitalized using pulmonary free-breathing H-1 MRI. Methods A total of 12 healthy volunteers and 27 COVID-19 survivors (62.4 +/- 8.1 days between infection and image acquisition) were recruited in this prospective study and performed chest H-1 MRI acquisitions with free tidal breathing. Then, conventional Fourier decomposition ventilation (FD-V) and global fractional ventilation (FVGlobal) were analyzed. Besides, a modified PREFUL (mPREFUL) method was developed to adapt to COVID-19 survivors and generate dynamic ventilation maps and parameters. All the ventilation maps and parameters were analyzed using Student's t-test. Pearson's correlation and a Bland-Altman plot between FVGlobal and mPREFUL were analyzed. Results There was no significant difference between COVID-19 and healthy groups regarding a static FD-V map (0.47 +/- 0.12 vs 0.42 +/- 0.08; p = .233). However, mPREFUL demonstrated lots of regional high ventilation areas (high ventilation percentage (HVP): 23.7% +/- 10.6%) existed in survivors. This regional heterogeneity (i.e., HVP) in survivors was significantly higher than in healthy volunteers (p = .003). The survivors breathed deeper (flow-volume loop: 5375 +/- 3978 vs 1688 +/- 789; p = .005), and breathed more air in respiratory cycle (total amount: 62.6 +/- 19.3 vs 37.3 +/- 9.9; p < .001). Besides, mPREFUL showed both good Pearson's correlation (r = 0.74; p < .001) and Bland-Altman consistency (mean bias = -0.01) with FVGlobal. Conclusions Dynamic ventilation imaging using pulmonary free-breathing H-1 MRI found regional abnormity of dynamic ventilation function in COVID-19 survivors.