A series of Ag-doped ZnO films were prepared by DC magnetron sputtering. XRD and SEM results showed that the doping amount of Ag had a great influence on the films' morphology and ferromagnetism, and their magnetism can be improved by doping an appropriate amount of Ag. The theoretical analysis suggested that the magnetism resulted mainly from the film grain boundary surfaces. Further research revealed that these films had strong timeliness. Such a result indicated that the room temperature ferromagnetism of Ag-doped ZnO films did not stem from the cation vacancies but from the oxygen vacancies on the boundary surfaces. (C) 2016 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.