It’s a common practice to watch movies with subtitles while watching foreign language movies. Majority of the video playback software out there support subtitle feature out of the box, without the help of third-party software or extensions.
Just like other video playback software, the popular VLC Media Player also supports subtitles. While watching a video, you can right-click on VLC Media Player, click Subtitle and then click Add subtitle to select the subtitle file. Even though, VLC Media Player lacks the some of the advanced features present in GOM while dealing with subtitles, features offered in VLC are sufficient for most users.
With default settings, as you likely know, VLC Media Player loads subtitles if the video file has embedded (built-in) subtitles or the subtitles file is present in the same folder (with the same title) where the video file is located.
While this behaviour of VLC Media Player might help users who always watch movies with subtitles, those of you who rarely take the help of subtitles to watch movies might find this feature annoying as one needs to right-click on the video file, click Subtitle, click Sub Track, and then click Disable in order to stop VLC from showing subtitles for the current video file. That is, you need to follow this procedure each time you open a video file with subtitles in order to disable subtitles.
VLC Media Player lacks an easy-to-access option to stop it from automatically displaying subtitles but there is an option present under Preferences to stop VLC from automatically playing subtitles.
In this guide, we are going to show how you can prevent VLC from automatically showing subtitles for video files.
Method 1 of 2
Stop VLC from automatically loading subtitles
Step 1: Launch VLC Media Player.
Step 2: Navigate to Tools menu and then click Preferences to open Simple Preferences dialog. Alternatively, you can use the Ctrl+P hotkey to quickly launch Simple preferences dialog.
Step 3: Next, switch to the Advanced Preferences. To do so, click All radio button (see picture) located at the bottom of left-pane.
Step 4: Now, in the left-pane of Advanced Preferences, look for Input/Codecs entry. Click Input / Codes to see Input / Codes settings on the right-side.
Step 5: Here, under Track settings, change the value of Subtitle track ID to 0 (zero). Click Save button. This will stop VLC Media Player from automatically loading subtitles. Finally, restart VLC Player.
When you want to view subtitles for the current file, simply right-click on VLC Player window, click Subtitle, click Sub Track, and then select Track 1 or Track 2 (if more than one subtitles are available).
Good luck!
Method 2 of 2
Stop VLC from automatically detecting subtitles
Use this method only if the above method isn’t working for you as this will completely disable subtitles and you need to open Advanced Preferences to enable subtitles again to enable subtitles.
Step 1: Open Advanced Preferences of VLC by following instructions mentioned in the above method.
Step 2: In the left-pane of Advanced Preferences, expand Video tree, and then click Subtitles/OSD.
Step 3: Now, on the right-side, uncheck the option titled Autodetect subtitle files option. Click Save button. That’s it!
If you’re aware of a better solution, do let us know in comments.
Guy says
Thank you! Still works in 2022, on mac no less
Richard Beavis says
If you usually want to see your subtitle track, put the file in the same directory page as the video and give it the same name, but with the subtitle-suffix (eg .srt, but there are many others) replacing .mp4 In Preferences the default is to automatically link the two names, and open the video with subtitles enabled. You would have to disable the subtitles every time in future when you don’t want them.
Or you can change the Preference option as explained in the article. The problem is you may want different preference defaults for different videos..
So if for one video you want the default to be ‘disable subtitles’ so you don’t see them, then don’t give that .srt file the same name as the video; put a spoiler in it. You can still click Subtitles and select it by browsing for it (but after you close it that link will be lost).
I try to avoid changing Preferences as much as I can. They are the most clunky part of VLC. I only came across the above information by accident: that if .mp4 and .srt files have the same name they find each other like soul-mates at a dating convention. That explains occasionally bizarre behaviour when you thought you had disabled the subtitles but they keep stalking you.
Oliver Pearmain says
Changing the track ID to 0 didn’t work for me so I tried changing it to 1000 and that worked. I assume there”ll never be as many subtile tracks as that so the id just defaults to disabled.
Josh says
In simple mode just go to subtitles/osd and uncheck enable subtitles………..1000x easier……..
Margare Perry says
None of the above worked for me. Still getting subtitles.
Muhammad Haseeb says
I did both the methods. Still couldn’t get rid of default subs. Guide me please
Ryan says
Thanks! What a simple fix.
Matthew says
Thank you! The option sure is hidden. I was able to toggle the subs off with the S key every time, but after trying to explain to my 6yo what to do, I realised I needed a proper solution!
CJ Salvi says
Changing the track ID to 0 didn’t work for me (version 2.2.2), so I tried changing it to 1 and that worked (default setting is -1). I don’t want to completely disable it as sometimes movies have parts in another language and that’s the only way to know what they are saying unless it’s hardcoded into the video.
Cindy says
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This was such a big help to shut off the annoying subtitles! I never would have figured it out on my own! :)