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VLC is a quirky beast. Now, when I add a new video in the MacOS Monterey finder, having selected my iPad, and then navigated to the Files tab, and expanded the list of videos in VLC, and then dragging the new file onto that list, what do I see?

In VLC on iPad, the file is not there.

However, in Files.iap on iPad, having selected iPad on the left of the Files window, there is the new video I just loaded. If I open it, it opens in VLC for iPad. However, after I close it, I can still only find it in the Files.iap. I can not add it to a VLC playlist, a vexing thing to notice.

This is truly bizarre. The VLC iPad app has a limited ability to display files, but it has a semi-secret "overflow" set of files in the Files.iap.

As an obscure user interface that some might be tempted to call hostile, it is breath-taking.

But, I have let the secret out, so you can seek your VLC files there as well.

This bug was known in 2020, and developer Felix Paul Kühne said, in a reply that acknowledged privacy implications, that it would be fixed in the future.

Intending no disrespect, it is now the future.

I deleted the file from the iPad, and verified its deletion by noting that it no longer appeared in Finder>iPad under the Files tab. I added it again, and, just as before, it does not show up in VLC for iPad, only in Files on iPad.

Sigh.

Let's say that this is not the expected behavior at all. If you synchronise media using the Finder (or iTunes on Windows) directly to VLC's folder, it should show directly in VLC. A work-around through the Files app should not be necessary. I will try to reproduce your problem. You are using iPadOS 15? This is with VLC 3.3.9?

However, indeed, it is also correct that media opened from the files in VLC will play, but you will not be able to add it to a playlist. This is currently reserved for media stored directly in VLC.

That things be clear, I have never deliberately added a file that I intend to play in VLC to the Files.iap.

I have put some files successfully into VLC using the MacOS Finder (thus proving that I understand and also can use the method). All of the video files I have in the Files.iap are there as a result of my attempting to put them into VLC, and then failing to find them in VLC.

Some quirky behavior of VLC or the Mac's Finder, or iPad OS, or some interaction of some or all of those three has produced this undesirable result, I wot.

I'll try to reproduce that problem following the feedback you provided. Thanks. Let's see what's wrong there.

This sounds very similar to a problem I encountered in Windows/iTunes.

Try this - KILL VLC on the iPad (bring up the list of running apps, find VLC, swipe up to terminate.

Add video(s) using the method you described above.

Start VLC. When I use this approach, all the files in the VLC File Sharing folder in iTunes now appear in the VLC video window.

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 23#p532423

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 34#p527881

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=153374