An electrodynamic ion funnel trap has been developed and fully characterized with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF MS), an ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) and an IMS-TOF MS system. In electrospray ionization (ESI)- TOF MS experiments with low concentration peptide mixtures, ion accumulation in the funnel trap has been shown to increase signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) of analytes by a factor of 30 as compared to that observed in the conventional continuous regime. In IMS and IMS-TOF MS experiments, > 10-fold improvement in SNR has been observed. Removal of lower mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) ions prior to ion accumulation in the trap has been investigated and found to result in additional SNR improvements for the trapping mode with automated gain control (AGC).