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Pause VLC player when minimized
Go to Tools>Preferences in VLC player. Go to the Interface tab in the Preferences window. Look for the option to ‘Pause playback when minimized’. Click the Save button at the bottom to enable it. Close and reopen VLC player.
While the feature is useful for pausing whatever you’re watching while also hiding the app window, it would be even better if it also worked when the system was locked. There’s no way to make it pause when the system is locked. The media will start playing again when you return to VLC player, i.e. when you maximize it and bring it back to the foreground. This functionality will not be activated if you pause a video and then minimize it. Because you paused the media, it will not automatically start playing when you return to the app window.
This is a feature that layer has had for a long time. Windows 10 only recently added it to the Movies & TV app before removing it with no explanation. For most users, this was unexpected behavior, but the feature was still useful.
It’s strange that there isn’t an application for this position. MonitorES, an app that could pause media when a user locked their screen, was once popular, but it is no longer being developed. The app is still available for download on Github, but it will not work on Windows 10. The app only worked with a few apps while it was in development, such as Windows Media Player. The VLC media player was not included in the list of apps that could be used. MonitorES left a void that has yet to be filled.
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Because this is a useful feature, you can use your keyboard’s dedicated media keys to pause what’s playing. You should be able to pause playback even after locking the screen if the player you’re using supports these keys. They tend to work with the majority of popular media players, so all you have to do is get into the habit of using them.