VLC Media Player 3.80.0 alpha 5 for Android

Most Android players are really a codec list with an app wrapped around them, which is why they fall over on the one file you actually wanted to watch.

VLC works the other way round, carrying its own decoders inside the app so the format question mostly stops being a question.

The one thing that trips people up here is the download page itself, which serves three different builds of it.

Which VLC File You Actually Need

VideoLAN publishes a stable release and two separate test branches, and each one is built four times over for four processor types. That is twelve files, plus a pointer to the desktop version, and no label on the page telling you which row is yours.

Start with the build, not the file name.

If you are here to watch something tonight, take the stable one and stop reading this section.

Then pick the file that matches your device. The processor type is the last part of the file name, and getting it wrong costs you nothing worse than a failed install.

• arm64-v8a - almost every phone, tablet and TV box sold in the last several years. Start here if you are not sure.
• armeabi-v7a - older 32-bit devices, and some budget TV sticks that are newer than they look.
• x86 and x86_64 - Chromebooks running Android apps, and desktop emulators.

An APK built for the wrong processor fails at the moment you tap Install rather than doing anything strange later, so trying arm64-v8a first is a safe move. If it refuses to open at all, the usual reasons an APK will not install cover the rest.

No, You Do Not Need a Codec Pack

This is the single most common question that lands on this page, and the answer is short: there is no such thing as a codec pack for Android.

Codec packs are a Windows idea. On Windows, players share a pool of system-wide decoders, so installing a pack teaches every player a new format at once. Android has no such pool - each app either carries a decoder or asks the phone's own hardware, and neither route accepts an add-on you download separately.

VLC settles it by shipping its own decoders inside the APK. MKV, HEVC, VP9, AV1, DTS, AC3 and EAC3 are all in the box, which is why a file that fails everywhere else on the same phone usually opens here. If the distinction between a decoder and the app around it is new to you, what a decoder actually does is worth five minutes.

The one real exception on Android is MX Player, which leaves surround audio out for licensing reasons and sells it back as the separate MX Player Custom Codec add-on. That is a licensing decision, not a codec pack, and it is specific to that one app.

Two formats still worth checking rather than assuming: EAC3 surround on Android, where players differ wildly, and AV1 playback on Android, where older hardware falls back to software decoding and drains the battery doing it.

What VLC for Android Actually Does

It is a full port of the desktop player rather than a cut-down mobile spin-off, and the feature list reflects that.

• Plays essentially any file - MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, WEBM, FLV, WMV, MPEG, 3GP, TS and M2TS on the video side, MP3, FLAC, AAC, OGG, WAV, Opus, DTS, AC3 and WMA on the audio side.
• Opens DVD ISO images directly, menus and all, which almost nothing else on Android will do with a disc rip you made years ago.
• Hardware and software decoding, switchable per file. Hardware is faster and kinder to the battery; software is the fallback when a chipset refuses a format.
• Subtitles, embedded or external - SRT, ASS, SSA and DVD subtitles, with size, colour and position all adjustable, plus a built-in search for missing ones.
• A real music player underneath, with a scanned library, album art, an audio equalizer and playback that survives the screen going off.
• Casting and second screens - Chromecast for the TV, and secondary display output for anything plugged in.
• 360-degree video and 3D audio, which matters if you own a camera that shoots either and have been wondering where to watch the results.
• Gestures and remembered positions - swipe for brightness and volume, and every file picks up where you stopped watching it.

None of that is behind a paywall, because there is no paid tier to put it behind. VideoLAN is a non-profit, the app has passed six billion downloads across all platforms, and it has never carried an advert.

On Android TV, Fire TV and Chromebooks

There is no separate Android TV download, and that catches people out. The same APK detects a ten-foot screen and switches to a remote-friendly layout on its own, so the file you grab for your phone is the file your TV box wants.

Getting it onto the box is the harder half. Most TV boxes have no browser worth using, so the usual route is Downloader by AFTVnews, which fetches an APK straight from a typed address on the remote.

If you are still choosing between players for the living room, we compared the best video players for Android TV including the one your box came with, which you should probably turn off.

Streaming, Network Shares and Stream Links

VLC browses network storage from inside the app - SMB and FTP shares, NFS mounts and UPnP or DLNA servers all appear in its own file browser, no third-party client needed. That covers the everyday case of a NAS in the cupboard full of films.

For live sources it handles HLS, DASH and RTSP, which between them cover most stream links you will be handed. Paste a URL and it plays, or read how to open a stream URL or send your own if you want to push a stream out rather than receive one.

How It Compares With the Other Android Players

For music specifically, a dedicated audio app beats a video player with a music mode. AIMP for Android and GOM Audio for Android both give you a proper library and a deeper equalizer than VLC's.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

Some concrete tells, all of them things you can check before installing anything.

• Everything in your gallery came off your own phone camera. Those are plain MP4 files and the app you already have opens them - VLC solves a problem you do not have.
• You want album art, gapless playback and a tag editor. That is a music app's job, not a video player's.
• The file came from a store - iTunes, Google Play Movies, an ebook-style purchase. It is DRM-protected and no third-party player on any platform will open it, because that is a licence rather than a codec.
• You want the same thing on your desktop. Take VLC Media Player for Windows instead - the Android build and the desktop build are separate downloads.

Installing the APK

VLC is on the Play Store, and if you have the Play Store you should use it, because updates arrive on their own. The APK is for the cases where that is not an option - a Fire tablet, a TV box with no Google services, a device stuck behind a regional block, or wanting a nightly build the store does not carry.

Not sure which case you are in? Play Store Check tells you whether an app needs Google services to run at all.

1. Allow installs from your browser. On Android 8 and newer this is granted per-app under Settings, Apps, your browser, Install unknown apps - older versions instead have a single Unknown Sources switch under Security.
2. Download the build and processor type you picked above from the VLC for Android download page.
3. Check it before you open it. Run the file through APK Checker, which reads the package name and signature - a genuine VLC build is signed by VideoLAN and nothing else.
4. Tap the file and install. It takes a few seconds, and VLC will ask for media access on first launch so it can scan your videos and music.

The general version of all that, including what to do when an install is refused, is in how to install an APK safely on Android. New to VLC itself? Getting Started with VLC for Android walks through the first-run setup.

What It Runs On

• Android 4.2 or newer for the stable release; Android 5.0 or newer for the 3.80 alpha and the 4.0 preview.
• Phones, tablets, Android TV, Fire TV, and Chromebooks that run Android apps - one APK covers all of them.
• Separate builds for arm64-v8a, armeabi-v7a, x86 and x86_64.
• No account, no sign-in, no telemetry and no network access at all unless you are streaming something.

Quick questions

More players, editors and codec tools for the platform are in the rest of the Android APK category.

Download VLC 3.7.1 for Android and see how it handles your files, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.