The VideoLAN Forums

Please add the ability to remember the current playlist state when quitting, at least restoring the one currently loaded in the Playlist menu, so you don't have to keep manually re-opening the same one that was playing when you closed the app. This really should be the default setting with the option to disable it, as this is how every other media player behaves.

I've seen countless threads on numerous forums going back 15 years requesting this basic functionality. Here are 2 of the most relevant topics on this feature:

Remember playlist when closing app
Remember Audio Playlist and Position on exit then reboot

Thanks

Agreed. This should absolutely be default behavior with option to turn off if someone doesn't like it.
Default, let alone not having this at all, it makes zero sense that this wasn't implemented a decade ago.

+1

+2

This is a fundamental requirement which has been requested for years. I now have over 1000 songs in many albums originally put together for the car. The car player automatically retains song and position in that song. VLC does not - no settings make this work. I use this in my home office and it is OK with Hybernate as the PC does remember where it is of course but every re-boot means I lose the position and have to start again - very frustrating. I tried a recommended plugin Resume Media V3.40 but its interface is bonkers and I have so far not made it do anything useful (any suggestions welcome!).

As I said mechanical players like VHS or Car CD naturally do this. My Panasonic Freeview BD-R player remembers the position in every film played and reverts to the last folder at least. My car USB player remembers everything and starts again where it left off but not VLC!

Please, please add this feature quickly for my sanity. I don't even care about the position in each track, just which song would do! For such a fantastic player which is otherwise the best in the world this is a very annoying dropoff.

+5

I should have added that there is a related issue. Playlists seem transient. To make a VLC playlist file (*.xspf) I dragged my audio folders/files to the playlist area, saved this as a Playlist.xspf file and then opened this playlist in the Media panel. I then play from that. I found that anything in the Playlist panel usually disappeared on closing VLC and as there is no corresponding "Open playlist" I drag my playlist created as above from the Media panel, which is permanent, to the Playlist panel. Now I have found I can just play direct from the playlist.xspf file which I placed in the Media panel!

So my request maybe should be re-phrased as "restore state of media when re-opening app". I jusat want some way to continue playing a collection of files, typically held in a Playlist.xspf file.

I do realise this means saving something on closing/quitting VLC, or refreshing a file or the Windows registry every few seconds or at least every time a new audio file is started. My guess is there is currently no mechanism for that and that everything is simply held in memory. The registry holds loads of "started from file %1" entries but nothing relating to the file playing.

Yes, I’m able to do the same thing with an m3u playlist file, but how did you save as an .xspf file? It doesn't give me file type options and just saves playlists as .m3u by default.

Hi, In the latest VLC version on Windows 10 on the File menu there is "Save Paylist to File" For me this gives xspf as default but with a drop down menu for XSPF, M3U, M3U8 and HTML as options! Because my files had some original WAV as well as the MP3 I used the excellent free MP3tag filter to block all but MP3 and made an M3U file without duplication which I then read into VLC and then I created an XPSF file which I now use for VLC.

Incidentally MP3tag is fantastic - it allows you to add titles, convert title to and from filename, copy file details from one file (e.g. WAV) to another (e.g. MP3) etc etc. It also allows exporting a playlist in various formats but NOT xspf so I used the default M3U. Unlike VLC this will also read in a playlist and play it through VLC but still no way to restore after closing!

Ahh, I see it now in the File Format drop-down menu of the macOS Catalina Save dialog. These are the 3 options: M3U, XSPF, and HTML.

Thanks

I've been using VLC for years but only recently I started using it for multiple files and realized how important this feature is..

Everytime I open a playlist I have to press CTRL+L to show the playlist panel (I couldn't manage to keep it always open) and I waste a lot of time looking for the last episode/song I watched..
It will be very useful to have this option implemented but I'm not very optimist, looking for it I found posts from early 2000's asking for the same thing..

+1

Saving playlists as a file is not a solution. Some playlists are meant to be temporary (eg. watching several episodes of a series, rehearsing a list of songs, etc) so this would involve saving a new playlist every week, and constantly deleting the ones you are not using anymore.

Thank you VLC team in any case for giving us such a great program!
Regards

None of this answers the point. I have just one playlist with all my songs and I want to continue playing where I left off even if the PC reboots after a Microsoft update! My playlist is already saved and used every time but I want to be able to start again at the same point. So I just need to store the playlist position - every player I know does this - my Panasonic DVR holds the position on every video I have played and my Nissan Leaf starts again on the same playlist at the point I stopped. So surely holding my position in the current playlist in use is not asking too much!

@GordonHathaway: I completely agree. This is a standard feature for many devices and audio/video apps, and this feature request to save the playlist state would include playlist position b/c the saved state is supposed to include all settings and positions so when the app is relaunched everything is exactly the way it was before quitting. It's much easier to manually start the playlist over from the beginning than it is to figure out where you previously left off before the playback position was reset to default.

+1000
Why noone from the developers is answering?

+1
My usage of VLC is to open m3u files that contains about 50 videos of 1 minutes to 10 minutes (e-learning videos split into chapters and modules...)
So when I restart VLC, re-open the m3u, and positionning to the last watch video, should be a very great feature.

Note that this feature is need on desktop app, but also on phone app (android in my case)...

+1

I created an account with this forum just so I could upvote this feature request. At first I couldn't believe that VLC, otherwise the best media player out there, doesn't have this as an option.

My use case: I use VLC to listen to audiobooks on my PC. I save a playlist for each audiobook. Whenever I open the playlist, I would expect it to resume playback where I left off. Instead, the playlist always starts from the beginning. WHY. OH GOD WHY.

Anyway, in addition to PTSD, I now have a "bookmarks.txt" file on my desktop so I can keep track of where I left each audiobook. I shouldn't have to do this, though.

Thanks.

+1

So much this. Oh the anguish this simple oversight has caused.

Yes, please!!!!!

This is the reason I don't use VLC. It is the bare minimum I ask from software I use all the time. Remember what I was doing when I closed it last time.

I need this feature too. I mean, like everyone except the developers, it seems. Can't someone write a plugin or something? I would do it, if I knew how.

A made a new account just for this,i have found that there exists an extension called Resume Media V3.40 (Win/Lin):https://addons.videolan.org/p/1154044
I think this solves all the needs we all wanted on resuming from previous playback.
To install you go to Tools->Plugins and Extensions->Extensions(on the left as category)->Resume Media v3.40.To enable you then press on Active Extensions tab then press reload extensions and it should be working now.
I just hastily tried it on one of my series playlists(I have it in the media library as a folder),pressed play(on the whole folder) and it continued from previous place i stopped it.Perfect!

I have installed Resume Media V3.40 and realise I tried it before. First the user interface is very obscure and I see no sign of it doing any more than VLC does anyway as it can easily be set to resume a playlist, atleast until you close VLC - I had given up last time I tried Resume Media. What may be the problem is that my playlist is stored in "Media" and can be copied to "Playlist" but this disappears when closing and re-opening VLC so nothing to Resume presumably. Nobody seems to know how to make a Playlist stay after closing VLC! All completely infuriating for so sophisticated a player otherwise.