Make your own Yoto card: add your own MP3 stories to a Yoto player

A Make Your Own card will play anything you give it — a story you recorded, an audiobook you own, a grandparent reading aloud. Here is exactly how the upload works, which formats play, and what the card actually stores.

Still deciding on a player? Yoto vs Toniebox compares the two from both makers' own pages.

Five steps

1. 1

   Get a Make Your Own card

   MYO cards are blank cards sold by Yoto. A card is a pointer, not storage — the audio lives in your Yoto account and the card simply tells the player which playlist to fetch. That is why you can change what a card plays later without buying another one.

2. 2

   Prepare your audio

   MP3 is the safe choice, and M4A and AAC work too. Each file becomes one track, so split a long story into chapters if you want your child to be able to skip. Name the files in the order you want them played.

3. 3

   Create a playlist in the Yoto app

   In My Cards, choose Make Your Own and start a new playlist. Give it a title and cover art — the art is what shows on the player display, so a picture your child recognises is worth the extra minute.

4. 4

   Upload and link the card

   Add your tracks, then hold the blank card against the player when the app asks. That is the moment the card is bound to the playlist. Re-linking later replaces what it points at; it does not erase the audio from your account.

5. 5

   Play it

   Insert the card. The player downloads the audio the first time and then plays it offline. Nothing is stored on the card itself, so a scratched or swapped card loses nothing.

What usually goes wrong

• The card plays nothing. The player needs Wi-Fi the first time, because the audio is downloaded rather than read off the card. After that first download it plays offline.
• Tracks are in the wrong order. Order comes from the playlist in the app, not from filenames. Reorder there and the player follows.
• You want to reuse a card. You can. Linking a card to a new playlist just re-points it — the old audio stays in your account and can be linked to another card later.
• A home recording sounds thin. The player does not normalise anything. Record close to the microphone in a soft room; a phone held across the table will sound like a phone across a table.

A story to try

One from our library — listen with the pictures, or download the MP3 and put it straight on a card.

Noah and Grandma June Conducted Christmas Music Home

Listen to the story

Or one with your child as the hero

Their name, the world they love, and choices they make themselves. The first story is free.

Create your child's story