VLC Media Player Art Cache Folder (%AppData%\vlc\art)

Bottom Line: It is 100% safe to delete the VLC art cache folder. Deleting it will not affect your video files, music tracks, or VLC player settings.

What is the VLC Art Cache Folder?

Located at %AppData%\vlc\art on Windows or ~/Library/Caches/org.videolan.vlc on macOS, this folder is created automatically by VLC Media Player.

Whenever you play MP3 music files, MP4 videos, or movies in VLC, the player queries online metadata databases (like MusicBrainz) to automatically fetch cover art, album thumbnails, and movie poster art. VLC saves every thumbnail permanently inside art/artistalbum/....

Over years of playing thousands of video clips and music tracks, VLC’s art folder fills up with tens of thousands of tiny image files.

Can You Delete VLC Art Cache?

✅ Yes, it is completely safe to delete.

• No media loss: Your video files and music libraries remain untouched.
• Frees file handles: Deleting thousands of tiny thumbnail images speeds up antivirus scans and system backups.

How to Safely Clean Up VLC Art Cache

Method 1: Manual Deletion via Command Prompt / Terminal

# Windows (Command Prompt)
rmdir /s /q %AppData%\vlc\art

# macOS (Terminal)
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/org.videolan.vlc/art

Method 2: Disable Automatic Album Art Fetching in VLC

To prevent VLC from downloading album art in the future:

1. Open VLC Media Player.
2. Go to Tools > Preferences (or Ctrl + P).
3. Under Privacy / Network Interaction, set Allow metadata network access to Manual download only (or uncheck it).
4. Click Save.

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