How to Solve VLC not Showing Subtitles Easily

Subtitles are helpful when watching videos in foreign languages. VLC player is currently the most widely used player, and many users enjoy movies with it. However, some VLC users reported that they encountered an VLC not showing subtitles issue. Part of why the VLC subtitles not working occurs because:
1. a corrupted subtitle file;
2. the subtitle file's name doesn't match the video file's name;
3. subtitle file was saved in a wrong location;
4. inappropriate subtitle setting in VLC
5. issues with the VLC player software itself.
All these could result in the video subtitles not showing up in VLC.

Next, let's learn how to fix it.

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For movies, you can easily get needed subtitle files online. There are many free subtitle sites allowing you to download subs for films or TV shows.

While for some user-created content or videos captured by your phone or camcorder, you can use subtitle maker apps to re-create it.

This is an easy fix to the VLC subtitle not showing error. You just need to make sure the filename of your video and the subtitle file are exactly the same.

If the video is played along with a separate subtitle file, such as .srt, .ass, .ssa, .sub, etc., but the subtitles aren't working in VLC, it may be because VLC typically looks for subtitle files with the same name in the same folder as the video. There are two ways to solve VLC subtitles not showing issue:

Method 1. Place the video file and subtitle file in the same folder and keep the names consistent.

Method 2. While playing the video, click Subtitle > Add Subtitle File on the VLC menu bar, select your subtitle file and add subtitles to VLC.

If VLC not showing subtitles contained in a video, then it is likely that VLC's subtitle function option is not enabled by default, which can be solved by the following method.

Step 1. Open the VLC player, click Tools > Preferences on the menu bar, or directly press the shortcut key Ctrl+P.

Step 2. Click on Subtitles/OSD Tab and check the Enable subtitles option.

Step 3. Click Save to save the settings, restart VLC to play the video should be able to solve VLC subtitles not working. If not, go to the next step.

Step 4. During the video playback, click Subtitle > Sub Track on the menu bar. If it is the default Disable, then select the built-in subtitle you need.