VLC can be used for playing music on your PC and some users might want lyrics alongside the songs. While we can manually search for song lyrics, it would be better if the words to the music loaded automatically. There are technologies that exists which can find out the song that is playing. But are there apps that can not only identify the song but also fetch the lyrics? Well, apps like that exist for mobile phones. One of the popular one is called MusiXmatch. So, if you want lyrics automatically while playing music in your smartphone’s VLC app, then use a third-party application called MusiXmatch. So, mobile phones are covered but can we do the same in desktops and laptops? Well, it’s tricky and it might not always work. We have scoured the internet for a solution but it still is challenging.
Let’s explore some options we have to load lyrics automatically in VLC Media Player.
1. MiniLyrics for Windows and MAC
This ambitious project promises lyrics for your favorite music in your laptop or desktop. Here is the link to the download page for Windows and Mac. There is also an Android version but we recommend MusiXmatch instead. Once you download, install and run it in your computer, you get the following prompt to integrate it with your music players.
But completing the integration doesn’t seem to work for all. For some people only an older version of VLC Media Player is supported that too should be the 32-bit version. So, if you have an older (might be unsecured) version of VLC, you might get MiniLyrics to work for you. Also, finding the song in their library is another challenge. They might not have everything in their catalogue.
2. VLC’s Plugins and Extensions
As we know that VLC supports extensions. Several plugins exist for different purposes. Our favorite one is VLsub which is for fetching subtitles. But developers have tried making add-ons for loading lyrics as well. But the add-on developer community is not so active as you would expect. The older plugins are not frequently maintained and they might have stopped working.
Anyways, here are a few add-ons we came across for VLC to fetch lyrics-
- Lyrics from lyricsmode.com – An extension to fetch lyrics from their website.
- musiXmatch lyrics fetcher 2015 and musiXmatch lyrics fetcher – Not the official port of the popular Android app but they do look promising.
- LrcView – Supports VLC 2.x and not the newer 3.x versions.
- Song Teacher – Sing along with any music if this plugin works for you.
All of the plugins mentioned above can be accessed from this single search page on the official website.
We did have a challenging time to get them to work. You can view our guide on how to install plugins for VLC. Please let us know your feedback on the comments below. Together, we can find a viable solution for a VLC Lyrics provider.
So i downloaded a few albums in the Flac format and with the help of a usb cable I put them on my phone. they work as intended but here is my problem: when i open the audio menu on my phone’s vlc i dont see all of them. only a few that i have downloaded earlier and the only way to play the unseen ones is to open my phone’s files, search for them and put them in a playlist, which is kind of weird format. does anyone know how to make albums show up in the audio menu of the phone app? it would help a lot!
handbrake is good for converting various video files to different format, can even rip dvd’s and it’s free (opensource). Instructions on website, fairly easy to use, therefore no tutorial required! 🙂
I use MakeMKV to rip DVD’s then use Handbrake to convert them to the even more efficient H.265/HEVC format.
I have gotten pretty good at also importing subtitles downloaded from opensubtitles.org and merging them into the videos with HandBrake while converting to the H.265/HEVC format with HandBrake. I usually choose the preset of “Matroska – H.265 MKV 1080p30”. My Plex Media Server has no trouble playing these files with the Plex app on my Roku 3XS. VLC has no trouble playing the same files on my PC.
H.265 is, effectively, more efficient, but it doesn’t work on many old and not as old devices.
I would like to find a step by step tutorial on how to convert .wmv files into files readable by iPhones, WhatsApp and the Messenger Apps.
So far my VLC App. looks nothing like the three or four tutorials I have read.
Thanks for all of your hard work. I greatly appreciate the App.
Massimo
Although VLC can do the job it is much easier to use a separate audio file converter. The best I have found is Fre:ac.
It is available for Windows, IOS and Linux