VLC for Android

Videolabs

About this app

VLC media player is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player that plays most multimedia files as well as discs, devices, and network streaming protocols.

This is the port of VLC media player to the Android™ platform. VLC for Android can play any video and audio files, as well as network streams, network shares and drives, and DVD ISOs, like the desktop version of VLC.

VLC for Android is a full audio player, with a complete database, an equalizer and filters, playing all weird audio formats.

VLC is intended for everyone, is totally free, has no ads, no in-app-purchases, no spying and is developed by passionate volunteers. All the source code is available for free.


Features
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VLC for Android™ plays most local video and audio files, as well as network streams (including adaptive streaming), DVD ISOs, like the desktop version of VLC. It also support disk shares.

All formats are supported, including MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, Ogg, FLAC, TS, M2TS, Wv and AAC. All codecs are included with no separate downloads. It supports subtitles, Teletext and Closed Captions.

VLC for Android has a media library for audio and video files, and allows to browse folders directly.

VLC has support for multi-track audio and subtitles. It supports auto-rotation, aspect-ratio adjustments and gestures to control volume, brightness and seeking.

It also includes a widget for audio control, supports audio headsets control, cover art and a complete audio media library.


Permissions
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VLC for Android needs access to those categories:
• "Photos/Media/Files" to read your all media files :)
• "Storage" to read your all media files on SD cards :)
• "Other" to check network connections, change the volume, set the ringtone, run on Android TV and display the popup view, see below for details.

Permission Details :
• It needs "read the contents of your USB storage", in to order to read your media files on it.
• It needs "modify or delete the contents of your USB storage", in order to allow deletion of files and store subtitles.

• It needs "full network access", to open network and internet streams.
• It needs "prevent phone from sleeping" in order to prevent... your phone from sleeping when watching a video.
• It needs "change your audio settings", in order to change audio volume.
• It needs "modify system settings", in order to allow you to change your audio ringtone.
• It needs "view network connections" in order to monitor whether device is connected or not.
• It needs "draw over other apps" to start the custom picture-in-picture widget.
• It needs "control vibration" to give feedback on the controls.
• It needs "run at startup" to set recommendations on Android TV launcher screen, only used on Android TV devices.
• It needs "microphone" to provide voice search on Android TV devices, only asked on Android TV devices.

Ratings and reviews

May 4th, 2025. Buggy experience on the Android version. Can only play videos once, then nearly impossible to start at beginning. Program play pointer has serious issues Go back and do it correctly. End user needs to be able to play movies more than once .. don't leave pointer at end once movie ends. Provide "start from beginning" option, dragging slider awkward And ineffective. I actually have to clear cache and memory to make it work. Sad. WHO TESTED THIS APP???????

For the last 3 years, bugs have been slowly introduced. Now it's just not usable. I use exclusively for audio so I can have a separate app that will always have what I'm listening to ready to resume and now it never resumes, but starts over. I overlooked how it would always show the wrong thumbnail for years...but now it has zero use. Sad, as I've spent years setting up custom playlists and now I will have to do that all over with a working app.

I have issues with usability and general design clunkiness. Shuffle feature is a true shuffle that doesn't generate a sequence you can edit. File management of Playlists is frustrating and unintuitive (info doesnt show file path, you can't rename in app or add new songs directly from the playlist screen, listing them only organizes alphabetically, etc.). Library refreshes take AGES. Also not a fan of the design of the widget on android home screen, it doesn't utilize its space well.

What’s new

* Fix crash when downloading subtitles