How to Add Music to Google Slides

Adding audio

1. Upload the file to Google Drive first

   Slides picks audio from Drive, not from your computer. MP3 and WAV are the usual supported formats.

2. Insert, then Audio

   Select the slide, then choose the file from Drive in the picker.

3. Set playback in format options

   Choose play on click or automatically, whether it loops, and whether it stops on slide change.

4. To play across slides, turn off stop-on-slide-change

   This is what makes background music continue rather than cutting at every transition.

5. Hide the speaker icon if needed

   Format options let you hide the icon when presenting, so it does not sit on your design.

6. Check sharing permissions

   As with video, an audio file private to you will not play for anyone else opening the deck.

Before you add music at all

• Licensing is the real risk. Commercial music in a deck you present publicly, record, or share is a rights problem. Use licensed or royalty-free audio.
• Background music competes with you. It works for looping displays and silent walk-in, rarely during actual speech.
• Audio does not survive export well. Like video, it is unreliable through format conversion — test after exporting.
• Volume varies wildly by venue. What is subtle on laptop speakers is overwhelming on a hall PA.
• Consider not using it. For business decks, music adds risk and rarely adds persuasion.

Free Gixo tools for this

Each of these runs in the browser and needs no account.