In VLC for Android, we can make use of the playlist feature to create and manage lists of our favorite songs. We can access such lists any time and also use a sleep timer to automatically stop the playback. Now, playlists in VLC for Android has been upgraded to be able to include both audio and video files. So, files like MP3 and MP4 can all be in one unified list.
The playlist feature in VLC is only internally supported by the app itself. That means, it is not like *.m3u playlists which are supported globally by desktop media players. That means when you create a list, it can be used only by the VLC app. We haven’t discovered a way to export it for backup or for other players to use. So, if you uninstall/re-install the app, your valuable list might be lost forever. But it is a useful feature that can be used frequently by music enthusiasts to group songs. The lists are accessible from Menu ☰ > Playlist.
Steps to Create and use Playlist feature in VLC for Android:
- Click on Menu ☰ > Audio or Menu ☰ > Video to browse media files.
- On the right side of any song, press on More Options ⋮ and choose the option Add to playlist.
- Give the playlist name (for new lists) or add to previously created ones.
- Hit OK.
- Repeat the same process for adding more songs.
Now, if we navigate to the Menu ☰ > Playlists tab, we can find all the lists that we have created. Tap on any one of them and the songs that we have sorted will be displayed. Hit the play button to start the playback of all the songs in there. Tap on an individual item to start the playback from that track onwards.
You can also tap on More Options ⋮ against a playlist, and use Append or Insert next to add it to the current queue. If nothing is playing right now, all the musical tracks in there will begin playing. Otherwise, Append will add it to the end of the current playback series. Insert next, on the other hand, will use it after the current song finishes. In the same options, there is Add to Playlist which can be used to add all the items of the list to another one. Think of it as combining two playlists. There’s also a choice called Delete if you want to remove it permanently.
Sleep Timer
When you start the playback of a custom list, it will continue to the end. If the repeat button is pressed, then it will continue forever. There’s a way to break this chain. It is by using, the Sleep Timer. To use it, start the playback of a series of songs from a playlist or from albums, artists and genre category.
After the list playback begins, open the full player interface and follow these steps:
- Tap on More Options ⋮ (on the very top-right)
- Click on the Sleep Timer option.
- Start pressing on the numeric digits to set the timer.
- Hit OK to activate it.
Timer Tips: Pressing on 9 will set the timer to 9 minutes. Press on two digits like 23 will set it to 23 minutes. If you press on 233 (three digits) the timer will display 2 hours 33 minutes. You will get the hang of it. The maximum value seems to be 99 hours and 99 minutes. Venture into the same options to Delete the timer.
View Comments (22)
it crashes all the time and reset my playlists to 0 or 1 song...how can i fix this issue ?
Has anyone tried out how many files an internal playlist can contain? I would do it myself, but I'd need to set up VLC and media storage in Memu (since I'm not sure what happens afterwards and I don't want to risk corrupting my phone's data), and it's not really worth the hassle if someone has done it already.
VLC keeps losing my playlists. It seems to happen after either the software updates or I add new music to my phone and get the app to find it. The names of the playlist remain but all or nearly all of the songs are missing. Is there a way to stop this happening? I don't want to have to back up all my files as it's over 180GB. I'd be grateful for any help.
After the list playback begins, open the full player interface and follow these steps: How do I ??
open the full player interface ??
Why are there 2 different interfaces for the same playlist? I created a podcast playlist. When I play a file, there's a box at the bottom that shows what is playing, with progress bar and play/pause button. If I tap that box at the bottom of the playlist, this box splits in two, with the file title at the top and control buttons at the bottom (shuffle, back, play/pause, next, repeat). The playlist text becomes smaller, and now the file that is currently playing has an animation beside it to indicate that it's playing.
The playlist are identical, but if I delete a file from the first playlist, it doesn't get removed from the second. If I remove a file from the second playlist, it isn't removed from the first. Also, I can move files up and down within each playlist without affecting the other. What is going on?
How to add multiple files to a playlist? If you want to create a playlist with hundreds of files, to add them one by one is not a solution! Is there a way to add the files like in Windows, using Shift, CTRL, CTRL+A? Can a list be edited, is it a text file?
You can use the same multi-select feature most Android apps have: Long tap one element, then tap other elements you want to select. There's the options to add them to the current queue or to add them to a playlist. You can also gather them in the current queue, then use the "Save as Playlist" option to add the current queue to a playlist. From my experience, the latter is the easiest way to manage playlists, as you can double-check for mistaps rather easily.
Ayy thanks, this has made making a playlist way easier. Muchas gracias
Am I missing something, or is the functionality to delete a playlist broken (on Android ver 3.2.3). When I delete a playlist, it just comes back. I delete them by clicking the 3-dot menu on the playlist, selecting Delete, and then clicking OK on the confirmation bar at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes they disappear from the list and stay away until I refresh the list, at which point they are back again. Sometimes they disappear for a fraction of a second, and then come right back again immediately. Anyone else seeing this?
I have a problem with the sleep timer on my VLC Android, which I use to shut off audio files. The timer itself works fine, but after I wake up the phone in the morning, I have to reboot it in order to get VLC to start playing again. Has anyone else come across this and is there a workaround/solution? It's my long experience as an equipment service technician that there is no such thing as a "unique" issue.
Also, it is possible to retrieve a playlist from VLC Android : you need first to extract the vlc_media.db, as indicated below, then open it using a DB Browser (such as "DB Browser for SQLite"), then open the datalist "PlaylistMediaRelation". The whole table can be copied, and pasted in the Notebook, or in a sheet excel. The table can be filtered using the playlist_id ...