The VideoLAN Forums

(Ubuntu) When you open a video that takes up all screen space and close VLC, it will always start maximized after that.

It can be "fixed" by deleting the config files, but you have to do this again every time, so it's a bad workaround at best. Another possibility is making the config files immutable, but then of course you can't change the config anymore, so it's not much better.

After more than 5 years, it's maybe time to fix this bug. It makes VLC unusable if you handle high resolution videos frequently.

VLC tries to expand the window to match the video size. Most people consider that a feature, not a bug. You can change the settings if you don't like it that way.