It’s easy to define hotkeys in VLC, but two features may need clarification, first, how to define Global hotkeys and, second, how to remove a hotkey. If you look carefully at the Hotkeys configuration tab you will notice that three columns are available (“Action”, “Hotkey”, and “Global”). The third column may not attract attention in the first place, because it is empty, which is the reason some people think that VLC won’t let you define global hotkeys.

To define a hotkey, global or not, double click on the row that belongs to the action you are interested in, at the “Hotkey” column, if you want a normal hotkey, or at the “Global” column, if you want a hotkey that works even if VLC runs in the background.

Upon double clicking a small window appears asking you to press the keyboard keys for your new shortcut. In case you need just to remove a shortcut, you won’t find any button (there was a “Clear” button in older VLC versions), but you can just select the shortcut by clicking on it, and then press the “Delete” button of the keyboard. Don’t forget to press the “Save” button after you finish customizing the hotkeys.

* Don’t miss VLC Untied, a free program that lets you select one or more files or folders in Windows Explorer and load them to VLC media player instantly using a keyboard shortcut, even removing completely any files that may be already loaded and playing.

Enjoy!