VLC: adding media files to playlist via cmd using wildcards

What should I use instead of ??? ?

I am not aware of a native VLC option that would include only files of a certain type. Based on the command line documentation (also available with e.g. vlc -H), the closest option in VLC seems to be --ignore-filetypes which allows the exclusion of certain files by extension ex.:

vlc --ignore-filetypes=jpg,log,m3u,cue "C:path to files" 

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Note that as far as I can tell, --ignore-filetypes seems to only be applied when VLC initially starts. Running a second VLC call with --one-instance and --playlist-enqueue but different --ignore-filetypes extension parameters appeared to have no effect during testing in VLC 3.0.11 on Windows (July 2020).

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Using A Script

With that said, building off the comment you placed on this answer, you may be able to achieve your goal with a script based around VLC's --one-instance and --playlist-enqueue options and e.g. Windows PowerShell:

ex. vlcq.ps1

# Use basic wildcard notation (ex. "*.mp3") to place
# matching file names from a directory into a VLC
# playlist.

# Set to ex. "C:path to files*.mp3" via the command-line
$playlist_path = $args[0]

# Turn ex. "C:path to files*.mp3" into ex. "C:path to files*"
$playlist_directory = Split-Path -Path $playlist_path
$playlist_directory = $playlist_directory + '*'

# -Leaf returns the last item or container in a path
# (ex. "*.mp3")
$file_type = Split-Path -Path $playlist_path -Leaf

# Place any matching file names/paths into a $file_list
# $file_list = Get-ChildItem C:path to files* -Include *.mp3
$file_list = Get-ChildItem $playlist_directory -Include $file_type

# "Pre-load" VLC for (arguably) better intial playback, etc.
# Start-Process vlc -ArgumentList '--one-instance'
Start-Process "C:Program Files (x86)VideoLANVLCvlc.exe" -ArgumentList '--one-instance'

foreach ($file in $file_list) {

    # Add quotes to $file output, since this may contain spaces.
    $quoted_file_path = '"' + $file + '"'

    # Queue up the item in the current VLC playlist.
    # Start-Process vlc -ArgumentList '--one-instance', '--playlist-enqueue', $quoted_file_path
    Start-Process "C:Program Files (x86)VideoLANVLCvlc.exe" -ArgumentList '--one-instance', '--playlist-enqueue', $quoted_file_path

    # Add a delay between loading files to help avoid playlist
    # jumbling. May not be 100% effective.
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 2

    }

Where:

• $args[0] is a PowerShell variable containing the first command line value after the script name (ex. a pathwildcard combination like C:path to files*.mp3).

• * is appended to $playlist_directory to ensure the -Include option of Get-ChildItem works correctly (without a final *, an empty list may be produced).

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Note that this script assumes a single playlist play-through. Unfortunately, looping didn't seem to work consistently for me.

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Usage

Copy the script above and save it as ex. vlcq.ps1. You can use whatever file name you like but make certain to save it as a .ps1 (PowerShell script) file.

Assuming you opened a command window in the same directory as the saved .ps1 script (above), you could then load files into a VLC playlist with wildcards as follows ex.:

powershell -file .vlcq.ps1 "C:path to*.mp3"

Note that you may need to enable PowerShell script execution before running the command above.

Helper Batch

If the command above is a little long to type, you can wrap it in a batch file e.g.:

ex. vlcq.bat

@ECHO Off

powershell -file "C:path tovlcq.ps1" %*

then simply run ex. vlcq "C:path to*.mp3" in the same directory as e.g. vlcq.bat. If you want ex. vlcq (a.k.a vlcq.bat) available anywhere from the command line, you can always place it in a folder in your Windows path.

Path Notes

• The path to pass to the script for items in the current local directory would be . (ex. .*.mp3).

• *.mp3 is just an example. This syntax should work for any media type (i.e. *.ts). Note that this script has a potential side benefit in that it can queue up multiple images from a directory (which doesn't seem normally possible with just ex. vlc "C:pathtoimages").

• If you provide a non-existent extension, etc. (i.e. you use *.mp3 with a directory that contains no .mp3 files), VLC will start (via the first Start-Process command), but no files will be added to the playlist.

• You can use *.* but be aware that this will do exactly what it says. That is, it will load all the files in the directory (including any non-media files).

• You can select items other than by extension with simple Windows regex (e.g. A*.mp3 will select .mp3 files starting with A).

• When passing paths to the script above, some file paths that contain non-standard characters (ex. []) may not load correctly, even if they are generally not an issue in Windows.

Caveats

• Remember that the Start-Process commands in the PowerShell script above need a valid path to VLC (assuming VLC isn't available from the command line as just vlc).

• Beware of playlist jumbling. In short, calling VLC for each file (via ForEach and Start-Process) may result in some files being loaded out of order in the current playlist (compared to their order in the directory). Using a delay of e.g. 2 seconds after each call to load a file (via Start-Sleep -Seconds 2) seems to mostly alleviate this, but it may still be possible that some files could be loaded out of order (depending on VLC load times).

• Though initial automatic playback shouldn't be affected, delaying file loading means that loading all the items in a directory may take some time (in the background) compared to e.g. simply opening a directory with ex. vlc "directory name" (which is nearly instantaneous). As a practical side effect, closing VLC before the script has loaded all these files will cause VLC to reopen and begin playing whichever file was last loaded by the script.

• Regarding the powershell command, neither double-quotes around paths nor the -file option to powershell are technically needed if a path does not contain spaces, but paths with spaces will not work correctly without them (you will get a playlist full of essentially invalid items).

• If you add any options to the basic powershell command above, -file should be the final option provided.

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PowerShell References

• Split-Path

• Get-ChildItem

• ForEach

• Start-Process

• Start-Sleep