Top 20 Best VLC Media Player Hidden Tricks that you don’t know

VLC is one of our favorite media players (and yours too). VLC Media player is one of the best free media player for Window PC. It comes with 100s of features. In this Post, we collect  hidden tricks and tips for VLC media player. You can do many more things with VLC player like playing Youtube video, record video, take snapshot and lots more. Read this post and know these secret VLC tricks

1. Convert Videos using VLC

Many VLC media players users don’t know about this tricks. VLC can change and convert the videos into many formats. So you don’t need to download software for converting Videos.Step 1: Open VLC media player and Click On “Media” which is located at

Step 1: Open VLC media player and Click On “Media” which is located at top-right corner. Now Select Convert/Save. Or Alternatively you can simply Press “CTRL + R”.
Step 2: Now a Window will pop up like a below picture, Simply click on Add and choose the file you want to convert, and  Click on Convert/save.

Step 3: Then Select the type of the file you want it to convert to. You can even tweak the video encoding. That’s it, and this is how you can convert any video in

That’s it, and this is how you can convert video with VLC Media Player.

2. Watch Youtube Videos in VLC:

Yes, you read it right, you can directly watch any youtube video in VLC Media player. Before trying this trick in your PC, make sure you have good Internet Connection. You can also get rid of unwanted disturbance caused in Youtube Videos if you watch the videos in VLC.

Step 1: Open VLC media player and Click On “Media” to Select “Open Network Stream”. CTRL + N is the shortcut to perform this task.

Step 2: Open Youtube and head over to your Favourite Video, Copy the URL of the youtube video.

Step 3: Once you have copied the URL simply Paste it there where it says Enter the network URL and Click Play.

You will see that the Video is Streaming in VLC Smoothly.

3. Sync Audio in VLC

If your video’s Audio is not Syncing with the video stream then with a little tweak you can fix this in VLC media player. You can even Apply Effects to your audio and video, let us see how:

Step 1: Open VLC media player, click on Tools > Effects and Filters.

Step 2: Click on Audio Effect if you want to add effects if you are playing audio or Click on Video effect to add effects in a video file.

Step 3: Now Play around and make changes to add effects which will take place live.

You can make changes in the form of Brightness, Hue etc. Other tabs like synchronization is there to add effects too.

4. Take Snapshot in VLC

Many times while watching a movie or random video we wish to take a snapshot of it but it’s too time-consuming to Press Print screen button then open paint and all that Tedious stuff.

Fortunately, VLC Comes with the snapshot feature build in. All you need to do is Right click on the video while it’s playing, Hover your Mouse on Video option(in Context Menu) and Select Take Snapshot.

It’s as Easy as that but Comes Very Handy at times.

5. Use Video as Desktop Wallpaper Using VLC

VLC is the Only Media player that can do this for you. You can Replace your Desktop wallpaper with a Video Using none other than VLC media Player.

To do this select a video and begin playing it with VLC. Right-click on the screen, select Video, then select Set as Wallpaper.

6. Record Directly from Webcam

You can record your video chat session easily using VLC.
1. Go to Media – Open Capture Device.
2. On the Capture Device screen, you can select the video device and also the audio device like the system microphone.

3. You can also configure the options from the Configure settings. Finetune your capture with Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Saturation (and other) controls.
4. Head down and drop down the Play button to open the Convert dialog where you can select the Destination file, click on the Browse button to select video file location, name and format.

7. Listen Online Radio

VLC includes hundreds of Shoutcast radio stations. You just need to enable it through Media>>> Services Discovery>>> Shoutcast radio listings. Now, open the Playlist and browse through the stations.

8. Play Rar Files

Play Media Contained In Archive Files If you have a ZIP or RAR file that contains a media file, you can actually play them within VLC without extracting them. Simply open them with VLC and it will play all of the files contained within. If the file is broken up into pieces, just open the first part of the archive in VLC, making sure all the files are within the same place. This is a good tip when you don’t want to waste space decompressing the video.

Do you know VLC can play videos zipped inside RAR files? They play like normal video files and you can even use the seek bar. If the RAR file is split into several files, no problem. Just load the first part (.part001.rar) and it will automatically take the rest of the parts and play the whole file.

9. Subscribe to Podcasts

VLC can be used to stream podcasts, so you don’t need any additional software if you want to listen to podcasts on your PC.

Subscribe Podcasts in VLC

• Just click the View menu in VLC and select Playlist.
• Hover over Podcasts in the sidebar, click the + button and paste the address of a podcast’s feed into the box.
• You can then stream the podcast’s episodes from within VLC.

10. Download and Add Subtitle File

If a video you have doesn’t come with subtitles, you can add your own by finding an SRT subtitle file for the video and adding it in. To add the subtitle, play your video and go to Subtitle on the menu bar and click Add Subtitle File. If you want VLC to play it automatically, place the SRT file in the same folder as the video and make sure it uses the same file name as the video file.

Add subtitle in VLC media player