How to fix no subtitles in VLC player on Windows 10
VLC player is a feature rich app. Given how complex it is, you might think that the app is unstable or prone to breaking but that’s actually rare. It does run into problems on occasion but rarely is it a massive bug. If you’re using the app to watch videos but there are no subtitles in VLC player when there should be, you can try the following fixes to get them working again.
Before we get down to it, check at least two or three different videos to see if the subtitles appear or not. While rare, it may be that a video is blocking subtitles in VLC, but if the problem persists for multiple videos, try the steps below to fix it.
Fix No Subtitles in VLC Player: Disable or Enable Subtitles
Open VLC player and play the video that is supposed to have subtitles. Right-click inside the player and go to Subtitle. The sub-menu will have a disable option. If there is no subtitle file selected then that is why you’re not getting any subtitles.
In that case, select the Add Subtitle file option, and select the subtitle file.
If the video already has built-in subtitle streams — which is common with MKV and MP4 files — you do not need to load an external file at all. Right-click inside the player, go to Subtitle, and select Sub Track (or Subtitle Track). VLC will list any subtitle tracks embedded in the video. Select the one you want and it will display right away.
You should also confirm that subtitle display is switched on globally. Go to Tools > Preferences and click the Subtitles/OSD tab. Make sure the option to enable subtitles is checked. If it is turned off, no subtitles in VLC will appear regardless of whether a track is selected or an external file has been loaded.
Make sure the subtitle file name and folder match the video
When you use an external subtitle file, VLC will try to load it automatically — but only if two conditions are met. The subtitle file must be saved in the same folder as the video, and it must share the exact same base filename. For example, if your video is named movie.mkv, your subtitle file should be named movie.srt. If either the folder location or the base filename does not match, VLC will not detect the subtitle file on its own.
If your subtitle file has a different name or is stored somewhere else, you can still load it manually. Right-click inside the player, go to Subtitle, and choose Add Subtitle File. Browse to wherever the subtitle file is saved, select it, and VLC will load it immediately without needing a filename match.
Check SRT File When No Subtitles in VLC Appear
Check the subtitle file. VLC supports several subtitle formats, including .srt, .ass, and .ssa. Simply renaming a file to one of these extensions will not make it work if the underlying format or content is invalid. If a subtitle file is not displaying, verify its actual format and redownload or convert it if necessary rather than just changing the extension.
Open the subtitle file in Notepad and check its contents. Make sure it actually contains subtitle text for the correct video and that you do not just have a blank or unrelated file.
If the file has content but subtitles still do not display correctly, the problem may be text encoding. Look for garbled characters or broken accents when you open the file in Notepad — these are a clear sign the file is not saved as UTF-8. To fix it, go to File > Save As in Notepad, set the Encoding dropdown to UTF-8, and save the file. Reload it in VLC and check again.
If text still does not render correctly after saving as UTF-8, open VLC and go to Tools > Preferences > Subtitles/OSD. Look for the Default Encoding setting and change it to match the encoding of your subtitle file. UTF-8 covers most modern subtitle files, but older files may use a regional encoding such as Windows-1252 or ISO-8859.
Check subtitle appearance
In VLC player go to Tools>Preferences. Go to the Subtitles/OSD tab and make sure the subtitle color is set to white with a black outline. The Font size should be set to Auto and the position to 0px. If these settings don’t match, change them so that they do. Incorrect appearance settings can sometimes cause no subtitles in VLC to show even when a valid file is loaded.
Restart VLC player and check if the subtitles appear.
Different subtitle file
While we have checked the subtitle file already, it is worth checking to see if a different SRT file will work. Sometimes, the SRT file in question might not be loading correctly in VLC so trying a different one might do the trick. Additionally, make sure the file’s name doesn’t have any unusual characters in it. It’s best to rename the file to something user friendly. There is also a small possibility that the SRT file you’re using is digitally protected so again, try a different subtitle file.
Reset VLC preferences
VLC player has a lot of different settings and if you tend to tinker with them a lot, it is possible that you might have enabled something that is causing no subtitles in VLC to appear. You can manually dig through the changes you’ve made to the preferences and undo them, or you can reset VLC’s preferences entirely.
To do that, go to Tools>Preferences. At the bottom of the window, click the Reset Preferences button.
