The cuprous oxide cubes with the special porous surface constructed by nano-prisms have been successfully fabricated by a solvothermal method. The template-free method is simple and facile without any surfactant. The X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) pattern suggests that the as-prepared product is the pure primitive cubic $Cu_2O$. The effects of the experimental parameters, such as the reaction temperature, reaction time and the concentration of sodium acetate anhydrous, on the morphologies of the products were investigated in detail by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Based on the time-dependent experiments, the possible formation mechanism was proposed. Using photocatalytic degrading reactive dyes as the model reaction and xenon lamp to simulate sunlight, the $Cu_2O$ cubes with the porous surface might possess higher photocatalytic activity than those of the commercial $Cu_2O$ powder in the visible-light region, indicating the excellent photocatalytic performance.