How to install a VLC player skin on Windows 10

VLC player is known for its features and its ability to play a myriad of file types. Its interface is nothing to write home about. It’s a plain, no non-sense UI that doesn’t care much for design, usability, or even accessibility. If you do not like the default UI, you can change it completely with a VLC player skin.

It’s not something you’d expect but one of the app’s features is support for skins and there’s no shortage of them. Most skins are free and you can find them online. A skin will download either as a VLT file, or as an archive which, when extracted, will have a VLT file in it. For this post, we’re going to use VLC – MinimalX.

Install VLC player skin

Find the skin you want to use and move it to a folder where you won’t accidentally delete it.

Open VLC player and go to Tools>Preferences.

Select Interface on the Preferences window and select the ‘Use custom skin’ option. When you select this option, a new field appears for selecting the skin. Click the Browse button and select the VLT file that is the skin for the player. Click Save, and close VLC player.

When you next open VLC player, it will load with the new skin.

Remove skin

If you don’t like a skin, you can remove it from VLC player’s preferences. Open the preferences and select the Interface tab. Select the ‘Use native  style’ option to go back to the default interface, or keep the ‘Use custom skin’ option and click the Browse button to select a different skin. You will have to close and open VLC player for the change to take effect.

VLC skins and controls

VLC skins are just that; they’re a different wrapper for the media player. They change the way it looks but they do not change, add, or omit any features. That said, they may hide them. When you install a new VLC player skin, make sure you check where the controls that you frequently use are located.

The keyboard shortcuts that VLC player has will continue to work so if you’re unable to find, for example, VLC player’s preferences, you can tap Ctrl+P to open them.

It goes without saying that some skins are better than others. Some focus on just making the UI more appealing, or less cluttered while others focus on both usability and an aesthetically pleasing look. Most skins, regardless of how old they are, will work with the latest version of VLC player but there will be some exceptions.