How to insert video and music to PowerPoint 2026

Inserting music into PowerPoint and inserting video into PowerPoint make your presentation more lively. It’s also a very effective way to impress your audience and hold their attention. Among slides full of nothing but text, a slide with sound stands out the most. That’s a real advantage when you want to get your message across and promote your content, especially in presentations that “launch” a new product. If you don’t know how to do it yet, don’t worry! In this article, Lucid Gen will walk you through it step by step.

How to insert music into PowerPoint

Step 1: Click Insert on the PowerPoint menu and select Audio from File (Audio on My PC) to insert music into PowerPoint. Here’s a quick explanation of the options:

Audio from File (Audio on My PC): Choose an audio file stored on your device. This is the most common option because it keeps the risk of playback problems to a minimum.
Audio Browser (macOS): Choose audio files you’ve played in the Music app on macOS.
Online Audio (Windows): Lets you pick songs directly from the internet. However, if you choose this option, make sure the place where you present has an internet connection.
Record Audio: Lets you record your own audio.

Go to Insert, then Audio to insert music into PowerPoint

Step 2: Move the audio icon to a suitable spot on your slide.

Move the inserted audio icon to a suitable spot on the slide

Audio formats supported in PowerPoint

The audio formats you can insert into PowerPoint depend on your platform. I put this table together from Microsoft’s documentation.

Format	Windows	macOS	iOS	Android
AA	No	Yes	No	No
AAC	No	Yes	No	No
AAX	No	Yes	No	No
AC3	No	Yes	No	No
ADTS	No	Yes	No	No
AIF	No	Yes	No	No
AIFF	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
AU	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
BWF	No	Yes	No	No
CAF	No	Yes	No	No
EAC3	No	Yes	No	No
EC3	No	Yes	No	No
M4A	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
M4R	No	Yes	No	No
MID	Yes	No	No	Yes
MIDI	Yes	No	No	Yes
MP2	No	Yes	No	No
MP3	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
MP4	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
MPG4	No	Yes	No	No
MPGA	No	Yes	No	No
SND	No	Yes	No	No
WAV	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
WAVE	No	Yes	No	No
WMA	Yes	No	No	No

If your audio format isn’t supported, use an online audio converter such as convertio.co and online-audio-converter.com.

Trim the audio in PowerPoint if needed

Sometimes an audio file starts with a few seconds of silence, which makes it hard to time when the sound begins. Select the audio file on the slide, click Playback on the menu, then Trim Audio to cut both ends of the audio.

Trim inserted music with Trim Audio in PowerPoint

Play music in the background

Select the inserted audio file on the slide, go to Playback on the menu, and select Play in Background. You also have a few extra options:

Play Across Slides: The music keeps playing across slides until it ends.
Loop Until Stopped: The music repeats on this slide until you move to another slide.

Turn on Play in Background so the music plays in the background in PowerPoint — Turn on Play in Background so the music plays in the background

Set how music plays and stops manually

Another way to control how music plays and stops in PowerPoint is to go to Animations and open the Animation Pane.

Set how the music starts in the Timing section (on Windows, double-click the Play animation to open the Timing window). The options here match those in Playback, just with different names.

Start: How the music starts: After Previous (plays automatically when you reach this slide) or On Click (you click to play it).
Delay: How long to wait before the music plays.
Repeat: How many times the music repeats, either Until End of Slide (until you move to another slide) or a set number of times.

Set how music starts playing in the PowerPoint Animation Pane — Set how music starts playing in PowerPoint

Set how the music stops in Media Options (on Windows, double-click the Play animation to open the Play Audio window). Here you can choose when the music stops.

On click: The music stops only when you click.
After current slide: The music stops when you move to another slide.
After X slides: The music stops after you’ve moved through X slides (X is a number).

Set when the music stops in PowerPoint Media Options — Set when the music stops in PowerPoint

How to insert video into PowerPoint

A presentation with video shows your audience that you’ve put real effort into it. Watching a video also helps lighten the mood and ease the tension in the room.

Step 1: Go to Insert on the menu, select Video, then Movie from File to insert a video into PowerPoint.

Go to Insert, then Video to insert a video into PowerPoint

Step 2: Drag the 4 corners of the video to resize it. It usually looks best on the projector when the video fills the whole slide.

Resize the video after inserting it into PowerPoint

Video formats supported in PowerPoint

The video formats you can insert depend on your operating system. Here’s a table of supported formats I put together from Microsoft’s documentation.

Format	Windows	macOS	iOS	Android
ASF	Yes	No	No	No
AVI	Yes	Yes	No	No
DIF	No	Yes	No	No
M15	No	Yes	No	No
M2V	No	Yes	No	No
M4V	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
M75	No	Yes	No	No
MOV	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
MP4	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
MPE	No	Yes	No	No
MPEG	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
MPG	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
MPG4	No	Yes	No	No
MKV	No	No	No	Yes
QT	No	Yes	No	No
TS	No	Yes	No	No
VFW	No	Yes	No	No
WMV	Yes	No	No	No

If your video isn’t in a supported format, use a video converter such as convertio.co, video-converter.com.

Trim the video in PowerPoint if needed

If you only want a short part of a video in your slides, use the Trim Video feature in Playback. You can cut both ends and keep the middle part of the video.

Trim the unwanted parts of a video inserted into PowerPoint

Set how the video plays and stops

To set how the video plays, go to Animations on the menu, open the Animation Pane, select the Play animation, then open Timing (on Windows, double-click the Play animation to open Timing). The Start options work the same way as for music.

Start: How the video starts: After Previous (plays automatically when you reach this slide) or On Click (you click to play it).
Delay: How long to wait before the video plays.
Repeat: How many times the video repeats, either Until End of Slide (until you move to another slide) or a set number of times.

Set how a video inserted into PowerPoint starts playing

By default, the video stops when you click on it or move to the next slide. However, you can make the video stop automatically after a certain time like this:

Open the Animation Pane, select the Pause trigger, and open Timing. Set Start to After Previous (stops automatically), and set Delay to the number of seconds the video should play before pausing.

Set when a video inserted into PowerPoint pauses

Conclusion

That’s how you insert music and video into PowerPoint. The first time, these steps may feel a bit complicated. But after repeating them 2 or 3 times, you’ll get used to them and be able to finish in just 1 or 2 minutes.

Thanks for reading this article on Lucid Gen!

How to insert video and music to PowerPoint