How to Cycle Audio Tracks in mpv with Keyboard?

The mpv media player allows users to change audio tracks instantly during playback using native keyboard shortcuts. This guide provides the exact default keybindings for toggling audio tracks, explains how to cycles through multiple language streams, and demonstrates how to remap these keys to custom shortcuts via the input.conf configuration file.

Default Keyboard Shortcuts for Audio Switching

By default, mpv has built-in keybindings assigned to audio track management. You do not need to open any menus; pressing these keys while a video is playing will cycle through the available audio streams:

When you press these keys, an On-Screen Display (OSD) message will appear in the top-left corner of the video window, showing the name, language, and format of the newly selected audio track (e.g., “Audio: 2 es (ac3)”).

Customizing the Audio Toggle Shortcuts

If the default shortcuts are inconvenient, you can remap them to any key combination by modifying or creating an input.conf file in your mpv configuration directory.

1. Locate your Configuration Folder

2. Edit the input.conf File

Open or create a text file named input.conf in that directory and add your preferred keybindings using the cycle audio command.

For example, to use the A key to cycle forward and Shift + A to cycle backward, add the following lines:

a cycle audio          # switch to the next audio track
A cycle audio down     # switch to the previous audio track

Save the file and restart mpv for the new keyboard shortcuts to take effect.