How to Batch Convert Media Files in VLC

When it comes to music or video files, VLC is a veritable Swiss-army knife of a program. If you need to convert a bunch of files all at once, here’s what you can do!

Music:
Dan Henig - Pluck It Up

[NorthIdahoNomads]

Any tips for doing this on the MAC VLC? The Mac one doesn't seem to have the option for multiple videos to be converted at the same time?

[laszlonagy]

It works pretty fine.

But...

How can I select another output destination device and/or folder if I don't want to convert my videos in the same folder where my original videos in?

Because I don't have enough space on the same drive...

Thanks.

[remymureithi]

Thank you for this! It was very helpful. I learned a new trick

[wolfd]

Any suggestions on how to do this on the Mac OS?

[karlaliivm]

This gave me an error and made lose all my videos yesterday trying to convert multiple files, i've read it's not recommended to overwrite to the same folder, but the VLC do not let us to pick a destination folder when it's to convert multiples files, this program needs a fix

[GoaWay...]

Can I batch convert/rip tracks on a CD?

[jamesallen]

Still trying to figure out how to get VLC to let me select a root folder for it to recursively search through and convert files.

[MrThunderwing]

Hi, this isn't working for me, when I select convert after I've clicked on my files the 'multiple files selected' bit isn't showing up and it's acting like I've only selected one. Any idea how I can fix this?

[SNARE_DESECRATOR]

Mine just keeps trying to convert the same file? Lol. It converts the first one then goes "yo u already got that file u wanna overwrite it" in a forever loop...

[MyMotherWasaNinja]

VLC interface is totally different on a Mac.

[raiyanreza]

i cannot find this function on vlc version 3.0.16 mac

[KvltKommando]

it only selects one file at a time, wtf

[larrycamilli]

Every posting I've ever seen about how to use VLC to do anything beyond playing a video or converting ONE file has been complete bullshit. It's not the fault of the poster, though in almost all cases, it's clear that the poster merely stole the content from a previous posting and didn't actually try to do what he's pretending to understand. The main problem is that every version of VLC for every operating system has a drastically different user interface (and a different set of bugs). I have three different versions of VLC, one on a Windows 11 laptop, an older version on a Windows 8 laptop, and an even older version on a Linux box. When I try to convert a video (e.g., .mp4) to .WAV, on the Windows 11 laptop, the result is a horribly distorted audio recording. It works fine on the Windows 8 version. The Windows 8 version can't play some newer videos. So, I have to keep at least two different versions. I never update the W8 or Linux ones - because SOME of the things I do work there, but don't work on new versions. And, I update the W11 version only when I have lots of time to work around the many bugs that are sure to appear.

I assume that there is no VLC management whatsoever. Each engineer does whatever he feels like doing, including overriding changes made by previous coders. Nobody talks, let alone agrees to a strategy. [I once worked at a company that had two engineers that got into a pissing contest over some trivial internal interface issue. Each changed the other's code - back and forth - until one finagled a way to get the other engineer fired. As far as I can tell, management (such as it was) had no idea what was going on.]

Given the situation, it seems that the only way for any instructions to be useful would be for the poster to specify which version of VLC and which O/S it applies to. -Because it probably won't work for any other version or O/S... It doesn't solve the underlying problem, but would save the reader time by allowing him/her to skip all of the instructions that probably won't work for his/her version and O/S.