Add music to a photo

• Match the shape to the photo. A portrait phone photo suits Portrait or Vertical; a landscape holiday shot suits Landscape or Square. You can change the shape in Templates after adding the photo, and the picture is re-framed to fill it.
• Use the original, not a screenshot. A picture straight from your camera roll stays sharp at 1080p. A screenshot of a photo, or one saved from a chat app, is smaller and looks soft.
• Keep the wave small, or remove it. The template has a gentle wave along the bottom. In Wave, lower Size, or choose None for the photo alone.
• Words are optional. Add a Title in Text for a name, a date or a place. Darken under Style keeps white text readable on a bright picture.

Adding a little movement

A still photo with music is often exactly right. If you want more, choose Vinyl in Templates and add the picture as Cover art under Text to make it the label of a spinning record, or try Halo to put it in a circle with the sound pulsing around it.

Any song file you have on your phone or computer works: MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG and more. A video file works too, and only its sound is used, which is handy for a recording of someone singing or a voice message you want to keep with a photo.

• Songs from a streaming subscription (Spotify, Apple Music and similar) are protected and can’t be opened by other apps. Use a song you bought, your own recording or royalty-free music.
• For a public post, music you don’t own may be muted or blocked by the platform. Instagram and Facebook’s own music stickers are licensed for use there, so for a famous song, posting the photo with the app’s music feature can be the better route.
• For a private video to family and friends, any song file you own is fine to use.

Android phones have a built-in way to do this in Google Photos, which makes a short “highlight video” from the pictures you choose:

• Open Google Photos, tap Create, then Highlight video.
• Tap Select content, choose your photo and tap Create video.
• Tap Edit to change the music. Google’s own tracks are offered, and you can use music downloaded to the phone once Photos has permission to access music and audio.
• Tap Save to keep the video in your library.

Samsung phones also have movie and story tools in the Gallery app, though the menu names change between One UI versions and the music on offer is mostly Samsung’s own. If you want a specific song from your files, a particular shape such as 4:5, or full control over which part of the song plays, the studio on this page works in Chrome on Android with the same steps as above.

On an iPhone, Photos Memories and iMovie are the built-in options. The iPhone guide goes through both.