Play youtube videos in VLC player

Kaustubh Katdare

Kaustubh Katdare

@thebigk • Oct 23, 2024
Here's an old trick that lets you play youtube videos in VLC media player - arguably the world's most favorite media player on Windows, OSX and Linux platforms. I tested this on VLC 2.0.4 running on OSX Mountain Lion but I'm sure you can do the same on Windows and Linux as well. Just figure out your own way.

Step I: Open YouTube and copy URL of the video that you want to stream on your VLC player. For example here's the video of over-played, over-famous, over-hyped Gangnam Style -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0
(added it to code section to prevent it from auto embedding itself)

Step II: Load your VLC player. Go to "Network"

In Windows: Hit CTRL+N
In OSX: Hit VLC (in menu bar) -> 'Open Network'

Step III: Rock and Roll, do the Gangnam Style! Dance! 😁

Now, the biggest advantage of playing your videos in VLC player is that you don't need the adobe flash plugin anymore. VLC even offers several other advantages as well. For example, you can slow down the playback speed, loop the video, adjust music equaliser, load presets.

The one advantage that everyone will love is that this approach prevents you from watching the mandatory ads that show up before your video starts playing. Plus, I found out that on Mac, the VLC player automatically creates a playlist entry for that video. So next time I wish to play it, I just have to click on the playlist entry. I won't have to repeat all the steps. That's incredible, isn't it?

You can even play dailymotion videos in the same way. I hope you will find the trick useful.
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  • sweet_honey

    sweet_honey

    @sweet-honey-areuMs • Nov 22, 2012

    Merging the conversation -

    #-Link-Snipped-#
    I'm not able to play it.. It shows the error
    "VLC can't recognize the input's format:
    The format of 'link' cannot be detected. Have a look at the log for details."

    Please help..

    #-Link-Snipped-#
    I copied the url as it is mentioned in your example above.

    What version of the VLC player are you running? Also, what happens after you paste the URL and click Ok?

    It is VLC media player 1.1.6
    And I noticed that the error it shows have the url as:
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/9bZkp7q19f0" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">PSY - GANGNAM STYLE(강남스타일) M/V - YouTube</a>

    #-Link-Snipped-# : I think VLC needs the URLs in very specific format. The end should look like ?v=(CODE)




    Did you try that?

    sweet_honey
    It is VLC media player 1.1.6
    And I noticed that the error it shows have the url as:
    <a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/9bZkp7q19f0" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">PSY - GANGNAM STYLE(강남스타일) M/V - YouTube</a>
    You'll need to use the VLC 2.0.4 version (latest). Download it from <a href="https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Official download of VLC media player, the best Open Source player - VideoLAN</a> and try once again. I'm sure it will work 100%.

    #-Link-Snipped-#
    I have downloaded the 2.0.4 version of VLC but still the same message is displayed that I mentioned above..😔

    sweet_honey
    #-Link-Snipped-#
    I have downloaded the 2.0.4 version of VLC but still the same message is displayed that I mentioned above..😔
    check this link, there is a video attached of "how-to" in the article : #-Link-Snipped-#

    Hope it works.Good luck.

    Troll_So_Hard
    check this link, there is a video attached of "how-to" in the article : #-Link-Snipped-#

    Hope it works.Good luck.
    Sorry for late reply. I'm following the same steps but can't play the video...
    Bad luck!!!😔
  • Abhishek Rawal

    Abhishek Rawal

    @abhishek-fg9tRh • Nov 27, 2012

    Click on "file" --> click "Open network stream"
    Enter the url ....

    Now important step:
    Down there are two options "play" & "cancel". There is also drop-down menu on right side of "play", click on it & now select "stream" or press "alt+s".
    Hit it & it will work.

    I had same problem with "play" button,so i did select "stream" & bam! it worked.After that, now if i select "play" instead of "stream" then also it streams.... a minor bug here maybe!

    If these doesn't fix the problem, uninstall the vlc, delete the entire folder videolan in program files ,reboot; then re-install vlc 2.0.4 & try again. Hope this helps.
  • sweet_honey

    sweet_honey

    @sweet-honey-areuMs • Nov 27, 2012

    Thanks #-Link-Snipped-#
    It worked after re installation of VLC.

    One more thing to ask that I'm facing a lot of buffering problem. Even more than that if I play it in you tube.
  • Anoop Kumar

    Anoop Kumar

    @anoop-kumar-GDGRCn • Aug 2, 2013

    You can directly play youtube videos in VLC 1.1+ (Current is 2.0.7).
    Just use shortcut Ctrl+N or use Media --> Open Network Stream and paste youtube video url hit Play.
    Capture

    Only demerit is, it fetch highest resolution by default.

    It seems little tip but quite usefull when you are watching some programming tutorial video and want to code as well. just play the video in VLC and select video Video-->always on top. you can view the video and code as well.😀
  • Abhishek Rawal

    Abhishek Rawal

    @abhishek-fg9tRh • Aug 2, 2013

    Already covered months ago I guess 😀
    <a href="https://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/play-youtube-videos-in-vlc-player.60772">Play youtube videos in VLC player</a>
  • Anoop Kumar

    Anoop Kumar

    @anoop-kumar-GDGRCn • Aug 2, 2013

    😳, didn't searched for it.
  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Kaustubh Katdare

    @thebigk • Aug 2, 2013

    Merged the threads, no worries.
  • Anoop Kumar

    Anoop Kumar

    @anoop-kumar-GDGRCn • Aug 2, 2013

    I really love this feature. Watching talk show like this while can do other some work at the same time.
    VLC_alwaysOnTop