Portable VLC Media Player

Portable VLC Media Player is a free, open source cross platform VLC portable media player that can play most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols. Additional features include the ability to play codecs such as FLV, AVI, OGG, DivX, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MP3, WAV and many other streaming protocols.

Portable VLC Media Player | Playback

VLC portable media player shown playing back a Big Buck Bunny movie clip from an avi file:

Portable VLC

Extracted Size: +- 20 MB
Official Website: Official Project Page
Portable Wrapper: Portable VLC Wrapper
License: Open Source

This stand alone version of the popular media player VLC has been optimized for use on portable devices, such as USB drives or external hard drives. It can easily be installed on a portable device and run directly from that device, without the need to install the software on the host computer.

Reasons to use a Portable VLC Media Player

  • VLC Portability: As mentioned, this VLC media player can be installed on a removable device, making it portable. Allowing you to take it with you to use while on the go.
  • Privacy: If you're using a public computer or a computer that you don't have administrative rights on, you may not be able to install software. VLC Portable allows you to use the media player without installing anything on the host computer.
  • Consistency: Using it portably ensures you are always running on the same version, regardless of what computer you're using. This can help you avoid compatibility issues or other problems that may arise when using different versions of the software.

There are two variants; one with a portable wrapper available from portableapps that allows the vlc media player to be run portably. There is also an official stand alone version available as a zip or .7z file from the official website.

How to make VLC Media Player Portable

To use VLC Portably, simply download it from either portableapps or the official website and install it onto a USB drive. Then, plug the removable drive into the computer you want to use VLC media player on, and run it from the self contained folder on the external device. For example;

To Install to a USB flash drive using the portable app wrapper:

  1. Download the VLC Portable wrapper from the portableapps site.
  2. Run VLC_Portable and follow the onscreen instruction, installing to your USB device.
  3. Click VLCPortable.exe from the VLCPortable folder to launch the media player.

Or to make a stand alone VLC player using the official zipped version from the original author:

  1. Simply grab the vlc-3.x.x-win32.zip from the authors official site.
  2. Then unzip/extract the contents of the archive to a location on your removable drive.
  3. Finally, use vlc.exe from the vlc folder on your USB to launch the program.