How to loop a video in VLC

VLC treats looping as a playlist setting, which is why the button has three states rather than an on and off switch. The labels in VLC’s own settings are “Repeat all” and “Repeat current item”, and the keyboard shortcut is listed as “Normal/Loop/Repeat”.

• No loop (normal): VLC plays the playlist once and stops at the end.
• Loop all: when the last item finishes, VLC goes back to the first. With several videos queued, you get the whole set on repeat. With one video open, it behaves like loop one.
• Loop one: the current file plays again and again, even if other items are queued after it. This is the mode to pick if you dragged a folder in but want one clip on repeat.

If a video stops after one play although you clicked the button, check which mode is showing. A common mix-up is turning on loop all while a long playlist is open: the clip you care about will come back, but only after everything else has played.

The A→B loop is for practising a dance step, studying a goal or learning a few bars of music. It is a separate control from the repeat button and lives in the Advanced Controls bar, which is hidden by default.

1. Choose View → Advanced Controls. A second row of buttons appears above the usual controls.
2. Play the video to just before the section and click the A→B button. Its tooltip reads “Loop from point A to point B continuously. Click to set point A”.
3. Let it play to the end of the section and click again (“Click to set point B”). VLC jumps back to A and starts repeating.
4. Click a third time (“Stop the A to B loop”) to clear both points and carry on normally.

With the Advanced Controls showing, Shift+L presses the A→B button from the keyboard. It is easiest to pause, step to the exact spot and then set the point, because clicking during playback tends to land a moment late.

VLC restarts the section by seeking back to point A, so depending on the file there can be a brief pause or a small jump at each restart. That is fine for practice. If you need a section that repeats cleanly and plays the same way everywhere, loop part of the video into its own file instead.

VLC for Mac

The Mac version of VLC has its own interface. Open the Playback menu and choose Repeat One for the current file, Repeat All for the playlist, or A→B Loop to set the two points of a section. If you want the shuffle and repeat buttons on the player window as well, choose View → Show Shuffle & Repeat Buttons.

Make VLC loop every video by default

If you always want files to repeat, set it once in the advanced preferences rather than clicking the button each time.

1. Choose Tools → Preferences.
2. At the bottom left, under Show settings, choose All.
3. Select Playlist in the list on the left.
4. Tick Repeat current item to loop each file, or Repeat all to loop the playlist, then click Save and restart VLC.

The same options exist on the command line as --repeat (or -R) and --loop (or -L), which is handy for a kiosk or a shortcut that opens one video on repeat. To undo the change, untick the box again, or use Tools → Preferences → Reset Preferences.

VLC for Android

While a video plays, tap the Options icon in the bottom-right corner of the player. Repeat mode repeats the current video, and A-B repeat loops a section: tap SET START POINT at the start, then SET END POINT at the end, and the section starts repeating. VLC for iPhone and iPad also has repeat controls, but VideoLAN’s documentation does not describe them, so check the player’s options in your version.

Every loop setting above is a playback instruction for VLC on that device. Nothing changes in the video file. Send the clip to a friend, put it on a USB stick for a TV, or upload it to a social network, and it plays once.

VLC’s Convert / Save tool converts a file from one format to another a single time; it has no repeat count. If you need a file that is genuinely longer, such as a 10-second clip turned into a one-hour loop for a screen in a shop, or a short section repeated ten times for a lesson, you have to create a new video with the repeats inside it.

loop.video is a free looper that runs in the browser on your computer or phone. The video is read from your device and never uploaded, and there is no watermark or account.

• Click Select video. The strip under the preview shows thumbnails of the clip.
• To keep only a section, as with VLC’s A→B loop, press Set start (I) and Set end (O) at the playhead, or drag the Loop start and Loop end handles. The arrow keys move a selected handle by one frame.
• Under Repeat, choose Number of times (1 to 999) or Length (from 30 s up to a Custom length of 3:00:00).
• If the restart looks abrupt, press Find the best loop to search for the start and end that match most closely, or switch the join to Crossfade.
• Click Export video, then Download video. The new MP4 plays on repeat in any player, including VLC with no loop button pressed.

Long exports are quick because the loop is encoded once and those frames are written again for every repeat. If the join is a Cut, the shape and size are original, Quality is Standard and the loop starts on a key frame, the original frames are copied with no re-encoding at all; otherwise the loop is re-encoded once. Files are capped at three hours, and it cannot open online or streamed videos, only files on your device.