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When it comes to playing videos on your computer, there’s no better option than VLC. Available for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, VLC is one of the most powerful video players available today. As an open-source platform, VLC can play almost every single format imaginable, from local files to DVDs and Blu-rays, and even streaming content using a URL from your browser. Regular TechJunkie readers will know our staff of writers are big fans of the program, thanks to its versatility and usability, but if you’re new to using the software, you might have some adjusting to do in order to learn how the platform works.
Also see our article Using VLC With Chromecast
Really useful shortcuts and hotkeys for VLC Media Player. Perform certain tasks or access menu items quicker with these shortcuts. VLC Media Player Keyboard Shortcut or Hotkeys for Windows, MAC OS X, Linux and Ubuntu every user need to know.
One of the first things you should learn to become a VLC power user is the player’s litany of keyboard shortcuts. Luckily, we’ve put in the effort and gather dozens of essential keyboard shortcuts every VLC user should be familiar with. From toggling full screen mode and pausing your movie to adjusting the subtitle delay and changing your zoom level, these are the keyboard shortcuts you absolutely need to know.
VLC keyboard shortcuts
If you’re ready to learn how keyboard shortcuts work in VLC, here’s our full list. You’ll need to stay focused to learn all of these shortcuts, or just keep this URL bookmarked as a handy reminder. Don’t worry—these are also customizable, which we’ll cover at the bottom of this guide.
- F – Fullscreen
- Esc – Exit full screen mode
- Spacebar – Pause or play movie
- V – Turn subtitles on or off
- B – Select audio track
- Ctrl + up arrow – Increase volume
- Ctrl + down arrow – Decrease volume
- Right-click in video – Video controls
- Ctrl + D – Open disc
- Ctrl + F – Open folder
- Ctrl + R – Advanced open file
- Ctrl + O – Open single file
- Shift + Right arrow – Jump media 3 seconds forward
- Shift + Left arrow – Jump media 3 seconds backwards
- Alt + Right arrow – Jump 10 seconds forward
- Alt + Left arrow – Jump 10 seconds backwards
- Ctrl + Right arrow – Jump 1 minute forward
- Ctrl + Left arrow – Jump 1 minute backwards
- M – Toggle mute on or off
- P – Play movie from the beginning
- S – Stop movie
- = – Playback at normal speed
- C – Change screen format to 16:9, 4:3
- G – Decrease subtitle delay
- H – Increase subtitle delay
- J – Decrease audio delay
- K – Increase audio delay
- Z – Change zoom mode
- Ctrl + 1 to 4 Play Recent media up to four files
- T – Show media time elapsed or remaining
- Ctrl + T – Go to specific timestamp
- E – Frame by frame mode
- Ctrl + H – Hide control
- Ctrl + P – Preferences
- Ctrl + E – Adjustments and Effects
- Ctrl + B – Edit bookmarks
- Ctrl + M – Open messages
- Ctrl + N – Open network menu
- Ctrl + C – Open capture device
- Ctrl + L – Open Playlist
- Ctrl + Y – Save playlist
- Ctrl + I – Media information menu
- D – Toggle Deinterlace mode
- N – Play next movie from playlist
- F1 – Show help
- F11 – Window full-screen
- Alt + C then S – Take a screenshot
- Ctrl + W – Quit VLC
Customize your VLC keyboard shortcuts
If the standard shortcuts don’t work for you for some reason, you can change them to anything you like. Like most programs, VLC allows you to configure your own shortcuts to better meet your needs, improve accessibility or to make it generally easier to use. Here’s how to customize your VLC keyboard shortcuts.
- Open VLC and select Tools and then Preferences.
- Select the Hotkeys tab.
- Navigate to the hotkey you want to change and double click to select.
- Select Unset from the popup window.
- Assign the new hotkey to that action and select Assign when prompted.
- Select Save in the Hotkeys tab once finished.
You can reassign all of the keyboard shortcuts in VLC if you want to. Just repeat the above steps and work your way through the list.
VLC is an awesome media player that works on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS. It is light on resources yet can play just about every popular media type out of the box. If it doesn’t support it naturally, there will be a codec pack you can add to it that does.
Whether you want to do more faster or have accessibility requirements, keyboard shortcuts can help. I use most of these regularly, although will admit that I didn’t know the incremental time jumps with Shift and arrows and Alt and arrows. Even I learned something today!
Got any other VLC keyboard shortcuts that I have missed? Tell us about them below if you have!
Be it a software or the operating system itself, having the main keyboard shortcuts memorized and using them each day can save you a ton of time in the long run. While some might like the mouse more and feel that they could be more productive with that, keyboard is something which you tend to use far more than the mouse and hence knowing how to use it faster and better doesn’t harm.
We have already covered 15 killer Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts that might surprise you. Today we will see 15 cool keyboard shortcuts you can use on VLC, one of the leading cross platform media players, to increase your productivity. The chances of you knowing them all is unlikely, so I insist you check them out. You never know, some of these could make things really easy for you when it comes to playing videos on VLC.
Important Note: We have written an amazing guide on VLC called The Ultimate Guide to VLC Media Player. It’s available as a beautiful page as well as a downloadable ebook. Make sure you check that out.1. Space Bar to Play or Pause
Now, two of the most-used functions while playing a video are play and pause, and thus VLC assigned it to the biggest key on your keyboard, the Space Bar. While Space Bar is the de facto play/pause key when it comes to media players, you can’t take it for granted. For example, many versions of Windows Media Player don’t have it. So knowing where it works and where it doesn’t is useful.
2. F to toggle Full Screen
So you have selected a movie, embedded the subtitle (if any), prepared a tub of popcorn, switched off the lights and then finally, you are all set to switch the movie to full screen and play it. Don’t bother with the mouse, just hit the ‘F’ key. It’ll let you toggle between full screen mode and window mode on VLC.
Speaking of mouse, check out the VicTsing Wireless Portable mouse on Amazon.3. A to Change Aspect ratio
Aspect ratio in simple words is the width to the height ratio of the video. When you play a video, it will not automatically fit your window, and thus you will have to try various predefined available aspect ratios to bring out the best. Using the context menu to cycle aspect ratio can be really time talking. Just press the button A on the keyboard to do that quickly.
4. Z to Change Zoom Mode
Using Z you can quickly zoom in and out the video in window mode. It cycles between one-quarter, half, original and double.
Buy the Microsoft Wired Keyboard from Amazon, if you haven’t already.5. Alt+Left/Alt+Right to Fast Forward slow
Want to skip few seconds on the video? Simply press the Alt button along with the direction key in which you want to skip (right for forward and left to go back). Each key event will skip 10 seconds of your video.
6. Ctrl+Left/Ctrl+Right to Fast forward Medium
To skip a minute in the video, replace the Alt key in the above shortcut with the Ctrl key.
7. Ctrl+Alt+Left/Ctrl+Alt+Right = fast forward long
If the seconds and a minute is not long enough, just combine both, the Alt and the Ctrl key along with the directional button to skip 5 minutes of the video. Well, that’s the longest you can get using the shortcut, any more than that, and you will have to use the seek bar.
Note: People who are using Intel HD Graphics card might want to disable their cards’ global hotkey before using the above shortcut. I didn’t do it, and my screen turned upside down.
8. Ctrl+Up/Ctrl+Down to Increase or Decrease Volume
To decrease or increase the volume of the video, just press the Ctrl key and use the up and down directional keys. It’s always easier to use the mentioned shortcut key than to hunt for the volume button. If your laptop is bestowed with some quick volume function button, you can directly use them to control the windows device volume.
9. M to Mute
There is nothing much to say about this. Pressing the M button will mute or un-mute your video.
10. CTRL + E to Adjust Audio/Video Effects
While playing a video or listening to a song, if at all you want to adjust the audio or video effects like equalizer, color contrasts, etc. pressing the Ctrl button along with E will bring on the Audio/Video Effects window.
11. T to Show Time(Remaining and Elapsed)
In window mode, you can just look at the seek bar to get information regarding the elapsed and remaining video time. If you want to know the remaining or elapsed time of the video in full-screen mode, simply press the T button to get a three-second info on the top right hand corner of the video.
12. +/- to Play Faster/Slower
If you want to watch your videos in adrenaline or bullet time mode (If you are not a gamer, you will probably not get that), pressing the minus(-) button will slow your video playback speed, and the plus (+) will increase it.
13. N/P = Play next in list/Play previous in the list
If you have multiple tracks in your playlist you can simply press the N or P to play the next or previous media respectively.
14. S to Stop the playback
If you didn’t like the video or you some urgent work came up, press the S button to stop your video. If you are in full-screen mode, your video will be stopped, and VLC will return to window mode.
15. Ctrl+ H to Hide/Unhide Controls
With so many shortcut keys who needs the on-screen control while watching a video? All of them seem so unnecessary!! If you would like to hide these controls, you can simply press the Ctrl + H button. You can bring it back using the same.
The above 15 are the shortcut keys I use the most in VLC while playing both audio and video.
The above 15 are the shortcut keys I use the most in VLC while playing both audio and video.
Which of the above you discovered today? Which ones you are likely to use most frequently from now on? Any cool shortcuts we missed? Tell us!
Liked the Article? Then You Would Love Our Ebook on VLC
Here’s the link, check it out: The Ultimate Guide to VLC Media Player.
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Did You Know
Only 25% of people can text well without looking at their keyboards.