How To Add Subtitles in VLC Media Player

You should make sure that the name of the subtitle file is exactly the same as the video file that you are trying to add it to. For example, if the file name of the video is travel_australia.mp4, the name of the subtitle file will be something like travel_australia.srt.

Manually add subtitles

If you already have a subtitle file to add to your video downloaded from the internet or generated using any subtitle generation tools, you can manually add it. Here are the steps to manually add a subtitle to your video.

1. Open VLC.
2. Click on the Subtitle in menu.
3. Click Add Subtitle File…
4. Choose the subtitle file that you have.

That’s it, the subtitles will start displaying on your videos right away.

Automatically get subtitles

If you do not already have a subtitle file to add to your video, you can automatically fetch it using a VLC plugin.

1. Download this VLC plugin.
2. Extract the file somewhere.
3. You will find a file lua. Move it to your /lua/extensions/ folder under your VLC installation. The default install location of the VLC media player is as follows for different operating systems.
   • Windows: C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\extensions\
   • Linux: /usr/lib/vlc/lua/extensions/
   • macOS: /Users/<your_username>/Library/Application Support/org.videolan.vlc/lua/extensions/
4. Restart VLC.
5. Click on the View menu.
6. Choose VLsub. It will open the extension window to download the subtitles.
7. Now, just search the movie or video by name.
8. After finding the subtitle, click on the Download Selection button.
9. It will immediately start downloading the file and it will be displayed on the video from now onwards.

If this plugin is not working for you, there are plenty of VLC plugins available that provide similar functions on their website. You can just browse through it and install them following similar steps and start using them right away.