In order to solve the problem of waste ceramic recycling and river sand shortage, a study on the properties of low water absorption ceramic recycled sand (prepared from waste low absorption porcelain ceramic tiles, referred to as ceramic sand) and the effect of equal volume fully replacing of river sand on the mechanical and drying shrinkage properties of mortar was carried out. The results show that ceramic sand has a low water absorption, apparent density and crushing index, which is a light and high strength fine aggregate. Under the same water-binder ratio, cementitious material composition and working performance, compared with river sand mortar, the mechanical properties of three ceramic sand mortars with water-binder ratio of 0.45, 0.35 and 0.25 are significantly improved, in which the 28 d compressive strength increases by 391%, 26.8% and 24.6%, and the 28 d drying shrinkage value decreases by 45.7%, 17.9% and 5.3%, respectively. The larger the water-binder ratio is, the greater the increase in compressive strength, flexural strength and elastic modulus of ceramic sand mortar are, and the greater the decrease in drying shrinkage value is. The performance improvement is due to the properties of ceramic sand with high strength, rough surface, containing micropores from 1 μm to 20 μm and a large number of micro-powders from 1 μm to 5 μm, which improve the interfacial transition zone and the microstructure of cement stone in mortar after replacing river sand with ceramic sand.