That's how VLC 4 looks like. It haven't been released yet. If you want the old UI you should look for the latest release instead (VLC 3.0.21)
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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Why does it look like what? What about its appearance are you wondering about? It looks normal to me.
Is this a distro-specific UI? It certainly doesn't look like that on Windows, Debian or Linux Mint.
Doesn't it use whatever theme you have your DE set to by default?
Honestly, I don't know - I haven't fiddled with the themes much on my Linux installations. All I can say is that currently, for the 3.x series, out of the box VLC looks very similar between Windows, Debian (KDE Plasma) and Linux Mint (Cinnamon) - all three of which are arguably different DEs.
A couple of other comments have flagged that this is the new 4.x UI, which certainly explains the difference.
Is this a Mandela effect or something? Have I been using a completely different VLC from everyone else all these years?
Oh, you mean it looks different than it used to? Maybe the defaults changed? I notice that with the beta version sometimes.
Ugh they GMONEified it :(((
What did you want it to look like?
I wanted it to look the way it did since I started using it at age 12. The UI is completely different.
Is there a theme setting?
Yes, it changed a few things but it did not restore the UI I am familiar with.
I believe that's the upcoming new look of VLC 4.0 since its still in beta. Its taking them a long time though
I can't say i'm a fan of it
I get you, a lot of features are not implemented last time I checked.
So the UI is still astronomically tiny in 2025 with version 4?
If that's how the next update is gonna look when it drops next millennia, I hope they have an option to make it look like it currently does. That minimalist look is horrible, in my opinion.