If you are running VLC Media Player you may have noticed that it is keeping track of videos that you - or anyone else using the computer and user account - have opened in the past. This is similar to Office's recent documents feature, and the main idea behind it is to provide you with the means to open a recently opened media file quickly.
You can check it out right now by opening VLC and selecting Media -Open Recent Media from the menu at the top.
The last ten videos that have been played in the multimedia player are displayed here. You can replay any of them with a click provided that they are still available on the computer. The screen remains blank if they are not accessible. This can be the case if they have been deleted, run from encrypted locations or drives that are not mounted or connected to the computer.
You can clear the list right away with a click on the clear link in the interface, but that is only a temporary solution as videos that you play afterward will appear in the list again.
If you do not want your videos to be recorded in the player, for instance, because you are not using the feature to re-open videos, then you can do the following to make sure of that:
Click on Tools - Preferences in the top menu or use the shortcut Ctrl-P to open the preferences.
While in the Interface section here, locate the Save recently played items option on the page.
Uncheck the box to disable the logging of played videos.
Click on the Save button.
Tips:
You can use the shortcuts Ctrl-1 to Ctrl-9 to open the most recent media files directly but only if the feature is active.
Note that disabling the feature does not clear the list. If you re-enable the list, you see the videos that have been accessed before it was disabled. So, use the clear option first before you disable it.