<title>Abstract</title>Candidemia is associated with a high mortality rate, and initial adequate antifungal therapy results in a significant decrease in the crude mortality. We herein report a rapid method that can identify eight <italic>Candida</italic> species in candidemia using imperfect match quenching probes (IM Q-probes) within three and a half hours of whole blood sample collection. Furthermore, employing the D value, which reflects the difference between the Tm signature from a clinical isolate and that registered in the database, it is possible to quickly identify samples suitable for IM Q-probe identification. We first evaluated the method using 34 <italic>Candida</italic> colonies collected from different patients, and 100% (34/34) of the identification results matched the preidentified <italic>Candida</italic> species. We then performed blind tests using eight whole blood samples artificially mixed with eight different <italic>Candida</italic> species respectively, and all identification results correctly matched the preidentified <italic>Candida</italic> species. Finally, using 16 whole blood samples collected from candidemia patients, we compared the IM Q-probe method with the culture/sequencing method. Of a total of 16 patient samples, 100% (16/16) matched the culture and sequencing results. The IM Q-probe method is expected to contribute not only to the life expectancy of candidemia patients but also to antifungal stewardship.