Settings Playback

Settings: Playback

⋯ → Settings → Playback (Ctrl+P; the header reads Playback Preferences). Resuming, starting and speed, preferred tracks, repeat and shuffle, seeking, discs and damaged files. Every row applies without a restart: the order rows change the current play queue when the window closes, and the track rows apply to the next media. See how the Settings window works.

Startup

Option	Choices / default	What it does	VLC option
Continue where you left off	Dropdown: Never / Ask / Always. Default: Ask.	What happens when a media you played before opens again. Ask: a question offers to continue; Always: it continues without asking; Never: it always starts from the beginning. Remember the playback position on Privacy is the same setting as a toggle (off = Never).	restore-playback-pos (0 / 1 / 2)
Start playing as soon as a file opens	Toggle. Default: on.	Starts playing the play queue as soon as it is loaded. Off: media you open wait in the queue until you press Play.	playlist-autostart
Default playback speed	Slider 0.25× to 2×, in steps of 0.25 (each step labelled). Default: 1 (normal).	The speed media play at. It also changes the speed of what is playing now, which the player keeps for the next media.	rate
Pause when another app uses audio	Toggle. Default: on.	Pauses playback when Windows reports a call or another communication that uses the audio.	playlist-cork

Tracks

Option	Choices / default	What it does	VLC option
Preferred video quality	Dropdown: Best available / Full HD (1080p) / HD (720p) / Standard (576p) / Low (360p) / Very low (240p). Default: Best available.	When a stream offers several video qualities (adaptive streams such as YouTube, HLS or DASH), VLC takes the one closest to this number of lines without going over it. Choose a lower one for a slow computer or connection.	preferred-resolution (−1, 1080, 720, 576, 360, 240)
Preferred menu language	Dropdown: Auto, then Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese. Default: Auto.	The language of DVD and Blu-ray menus. A value set elsewhere that is not in the list (a list of codes, for example) is kept and shown as is.	menu-language (ISO 639-2 codes such as fre)
Default audio track	Number field, counted from 1. Default: empty (a grey 1: VLC chooses).	The number of the audio track to play when a media has several. Empty or 0 lets VLC choose, for example by Preferred audio language (Audio).	audio-track (counted from 0; −1 = VLC chooses)
Default subtitle track	Number field, counted from 1. Default: empty (a grey 1: VLC chooses).	The number of the subtitle track to show when a media has several. Empty or 0 lets VLC choose, for example by the subtitle language (Subtitles).	sub-track (counted from 0; −1 = VLC chooses)

Order

Option	Choices / default	What it does	VLC option
Repeat	Dropdown: Off / One / All. Default: Off.	One plays the current item again and again; All starts the play queue again when it ends. It is the repeat mode VLC starts with, and the repeat button of the player changes it too.	repeat (One), loop (All)
Shuffle	Toggle. Default: off.	Plays the items of the play queue in random order. The shuffle button of the player changes it too.	random
Stop after each item	Toggle. Default: off.	Stops after each item of the play queue instead of going on with the next one.	play-and-stop
When playback finishes	Dropdown: Stop / Quit VLC. Default: Stop.	What VLC does when playback stops at the end of the play queue: stay open, or quit.	play-and-exit (Quit VLC = on)

Seeking

Option	Choices / default	What it does	VLC option
Seek precisely	Toggle. Default: on.	Seeks to the exact time asked. Off: VLC jumps to the nearest key frame, which is faster but less exact.	input-fast-seek, inverted
Show thumbnail while scrubbing	Toggle. Default: on.	Shows the frame at the pointer above the seek bar while you hover or drag it.	qt-seek-thumbnail

Files & Discs

Option	Choices / default	What it does	VLC option
Default optical drive	Dropdown: the CD/DVD drives of this computer (D:, E:…), plus the value already set if it is not one of them. Default: empty (shown as -).	The drive VLC uses when you open a disc without naming one.	dvd
Repair damaged AVI files	Dropdown: Ask / Always / Never / When needed. Default: Ask.	Whether VLC rebuilds the index of an AVI file whose index is broken or missing (a damaged, incomplete or unseekable file). Ask shows a question when it happens (Do not play / Build index then play / Play as is); Always rebuilds the index of every AVI file; When needed rebuilds it without asking when it is broken; Never plays the file as it is (seeking may then be approximate). The index is built in memory: the file itself is never changed, and a large file can take a while.	avi-index (0 / 1 / 2 / 3)
Load matching .mkv files from the same folder	Toggle. Default: on.	Opens the other Matroska files of the folder to find the linked segments of a video split across several files. VLC advises against it for broken files: turn it off if such files fail to open or open slowly.	mkv-preload-local-dir

Advanced Options

Option	Choices / default	What it does	VLC option
Start paused (Developer mode)	Toggle. Default: off.	Pauses each item of the play queue on its first frame.	start-paused
Pause on the last frame of each item (Developer mode)	Toggle. Default: off.	Pauses each item on its last frame instead of going on.	play-and-pause
Resume the last playback states (tracks, speed...) (Developer mode)	Toggle. Default: off.	When a media continues, VLC also restores its last states: the tracks chosen, the speed, the aspect ratio…	restore-playback-states
Time-shift buffer folder	Folder field with Browse (Choose a time-shift buffer folder). Default: empty, which uses the Windows temporary folder (%TEMP%).	Where VLC writes the temporary files that let you pause and rewind a live stream (time-shift).	input-timeshift-path
Time-shift buffer size	Dropdown: Small / Medium / Large, plus N MiB for another size already set. Default: Medium.	The maximum size of each temporary time-shift file: Small 10 MiB, Medium VLC's own size (50 MiB), Large 200 MiB. Also shown under the Advanced Options of Video.	input-timeshift-granularity (bytes; Medium = −1)

Good to know

• Quit VLC also quits on Stop. With When playback finishes on Quit VLC, VLC quits whenever playback stops, including when you press Stop. It also takes priority over Stop after each item.
• No resume question? Continue where you left off needs a saved position: see Privacy (history and media library).
• Seeking feels slow on large or network files? Turn Seek precisely off: VLC then lands on the nearest key frame at once.
• Wrong audio language on a film: prefer Preferred audio language (Audio) to a fixed Default audio track: track numbers differ from file to file.

---

← Controls · All settings · Video →