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50 Useful VLC Shortcuts You Should Know

 November 4, 2021

By  Gregory

I use VLC shortcuts on a daily basis and it does speed things up. Shortcuts always helped me take off the extra load that comes from using the mouse and keyboard. In this tutorial, I’m going to talk about VLC shortcuts that helped me saving plenty of time and fasten things up. Of course, I will be leaving “rarely used” shortcuts from the equation because remembering them all in a few minutes takes Albert Einstein sharp brain.

What is the concept of VLC shortcuts?

VLC stands for VideoLAN Client is an open-source project. VLC is a media player available for Windows, Linux and macOS. I have been using the media player for more than a decade, and it is a popular solution around the world. Thousands of software developers contributed in making the media player universal and premium in many aspects.

I tested the player on Windows & Linux based operating system and I must say that it exceeded my expectations. The computer operating system offers flexibility and the keyboard offers programmable keys for specific functions. In this case, we are going to look at the pre-programmed shortcuts of VLC Media Player.

1. Recommended

Every VLC media player user must memorize popular shortcuts because it makes our lives easy. We must applaud the developers for using universal keys to make it easier to remember for new users. I arranged the list based on my personal usage and it is coming from decade long experience.

F: Use key to make the screen borderless full screen.

ESC: The escape button comes in handy, when you want to get out of full screen mode.

S: I always use “S” to stop the video playing in VLC Media Player.

Mouse Scroll up/scroll down: Even though, this is not a keyboard shortcut, but it is definitely part of the VLC shortcut. You can increase the volume by scrolling up and decrease the volume by scrolling down.

Space: The long space bar works as Play/Pause button. Start playing the video or audio by clicking the space bar, and stop it using the same key.

I highly recommend the readers to memorize the VLC media player shortcuts because they will always come in handy regardless of what you are playing in the media player solution. The mentioned keys are available in standard keyboard, and require no special keys to operate it. I want to inform the readers that the mentioned information is universal and works with popular solutions.

2. Four Navigation Keys

I’m an avid gamer and I haven’t realised the purpose of the 4-wonder keys until I accidently started to it. Originally, I started to use 4-wonder keys in YouTube player and realised that they might be available in VLC player as well. However, VideoLan developers implemented it slightly different from YouTube.

Arrow Up/Arrow Down: Increase volume / decrease volume.

Arrow Right/Arrow Left: Skip the video to 10 seconds forward / go back to 10 seconds earlier.

Or,

Shift + Arrow Right/Arrow Left: Skip the video or movie to three seconds forward or backward.

Ctrl + Arrow Right/Arrow Left: Skip the video or movie to one minute forward or backward.

Alt + Arrow Right/Arrow Left: Skip the video or movie to ten seconds forward or backward.

I tested the shortcuts in VideoLAN Client 3.0, so make sure to download the latest version for further support. The developers might have changed or improved the section to meet modern standards.

3. One Key Default Shortcut

Remembering one key shouldn’t give a hard time for average users and I’m one of them.

D: Toggle Deinterlace.

N: Start playing next movie from added playlist.

F1: Opens help window and start exploring for answers.

F11: One-click to full-screen the window, but it won’t work well as (F) shortcut that I explained earlier.

E: E is a shortcut for watching a video in frames by frames. The video stops immediately and start providing frame-to-frame angles. More details appear in the video depending on the resolution and captured frame rate. I tested the feature on 1080p@60fps video, and it provides frames available in the media format.

C: I personally us this feature, where users can change the resolution or stretch the video starting from 16:10, 16:9, and 4:3. I found this feature very helpful in the past and it does come in handy, when you are watching old movies and television shows.

A: Sometimes media format doesn’t allow the videos to stretch, and that’s you can change Aspect ratio starting from 16:10, 16:9, and 4:3.

M: When you don’t want to hear the audio, then you can mute it without pausing the player. Muting function works on the video format and the video won’t be paused.

P: Play the video available in the playlist or history. Remember, this shortcut will start the media file from beginning and you cannot start from where left the media file last time.

Equality Sign (=): Adjust audio or video playback to normal (1.0x speed).

Z: Zoom the video starting from 1:1, 2:1, and 1:4 aspect ratios.

T: You cannot monitor the playback time, when you are in full-screen and use T keyboard shortcut to view the playback time on the screen. The time animation doesn’t last longer than 2 seconds, so you cannot even blink the eye for a moment.

4. Manage VLC Media Player

The time has come to look at other VLC shortcuts, since we have covered important shortcuts that every single user should remember.

Ctrl+W: Clicking the close button is not enough for people, who mastered the keyboard. Quit the VLC media player by using Ctrl+W shortcut.

Ctrl+B: Edit the existing bookmarks.

Ctrl+L: Takes the users back to the playlist. Use the same shortcut to go back to the movie from playlist.

Ctrl+P: Open preferences to customize the player.

Ctrl+M: Open messages and view them in the panel.

Ctrl+N: Open network window, where you can add URL of the video or audio to play in VLC player.

Ctrl+C: I believe, nobody uses capturing feature, where you can capture Desktop, DirectShow, TV, and Digital (TV Turner) TV.

Ctrl+Y: After creating a playlist, you need to save them to use it later on, and this is when the Ctrl+Y VLC shortcut come in handy.

Ctrl+H: I wouldn’t recommend this shortcut for beginners because it hides the controls of the player regardless of whether the window is full-screen or windowed mode.

Ctrl+T: I always remember the time, when I stop the movie. You can use timer “Go To Time” to watch the movie from where I have left before, and is an advanced feature.

Ctrl+E: A separate window appears where you can adjust effects of Audio, Video, and Synchronization.

Ctrl+O: Windows file explorer shows up on the screen and open media files manually.

Start using the mentioned shortcuts to consume media and entertainment faster than before.

Download VLC Media Player

Bottom Line

In this tutorial, I have explained 30+ VLC Shortcuts for beginners and expert media consumers. I had to split a few things along the way because remembering them all is a challenging part. Let us know which VLC Shortcut helped you in the process of increasing navigation speed in the comment section below.

Gregory


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