How to add music to a video, and which songs you can use

The free add music to video tool puts a song under a video in your browser. The file is made on your device, so nothing is uploaded, and there's no watermark and nothing to sign up for.

1. Choose your video, then your song or sound file. There's no music library: you bring the track, so it has to be one you have the rights to use. Where to find those is further down.
2. Set the two volumes: the music's, and the video's own sound. For a talking video, keep the voice up and bring the music well down.
3. Choose where in the song to start, so the video opens on the part you want rather than a slow intro.
4. Fade it in and out (over the first 1.5 seconds and the last 3), and loop the song if it's shorter than the video.
5. Leave “lower the music when someone talks” on for anything with speech in it. The music dips under the voice and comes back up in the gaps. Editors call that ducking.
6. Preview it, then download it. Most videos come back as an MP4.

It takes videos of up to 60 minutes, and the song can be any length. The picture is copied as it is, not encoded again, so the video looks exactly as it did. If its own sound is only noise, or a song you can't use, turn it all the way down, or take it out first with remove audio from video. Joining several clips? Merge them first, then add one song across the whole thing, so the music doesn't restart at every cut (see how to merge videos).

All three apps have a sound library built in. Adding a song from it as you post is the easiest way of all, and the app has licensed those songs for use there.

• TikTok. Tap Add post (+), then Add sound at the top of the recording screen, and pick or search for a sound. Tap Trim next to it and drag the slider to choose where the song starts. For a video you uploaded, open the editing tools, tap Sound at the bottom, then Add sound. A post takes one sound, and TikTok's help warns that adding one on the recording screen replaces any earlier music and voices.
• Instagram Reels. Tap Create, then Reel, and record or add a video from your camera roll. Tap Music or Audio (in the tool menu on the left, or after Next), search the music library and choose which part of the song plays. In Edit video, tap the music on the timeline to replace it.
• YouTube Shorts. Tap Create to start a Short. Tap Add sound before you record, or Sound after recording or importing a video. Volume balances the music, your video's own sound and any voiceover. YouTube says most songs can run up to 90 seconds in a 3-minute Short, and some only 60 or 30.

What the libraries allow. TikTok's Music Terms make its Sounds available “so long as the videos are only for personal entertainment and non-commercial purposes”. YouTube says the same of the music in Shorts, and Meta says its licensed library is intended for personal, non-commercial use. A TikTok Business Account can only use music licensed for commercial use, some Instagram business accounts don't get the licensed library at all, and a boosted reel can't use it. For brand posts, use the business libraries below.

iMovie on iPhone. Open a movie project, tap the Add Media button, then Audio. Soundtracks are iMovie's own music, which adjusts to fit the length of your project; My Music has songs synced to your phone from a computer. Tap one, then the Add Audio button. By default, iMovie loops background music to fit the movie, and ducks it whenever a video clip's own sound is playing, so a voice stays on top. Tap the music in the timeline, then the Audio button, for its volume slider; Fade there adds handles for a fade-in and a fade-out.

Apple adds two limits: a song you bought from the iTunes Store still needs the copyright holder's express permission before it goes in your movie, and songs with copy protection (DRM) can't be used at all.

iMovie on Mac has the same ducking as a setting. Select the clip you want heard, the voice, click the Volume button and tick “Lower volume of other clips”, then drag the slider to set how far everything else drops.

CapCut. Tap Audio, pick a track, drag it onto the timeline under the video, and adjust its volume. CapCut says some tracks in its library come with restrictions, commercial use for example, so check a track before you use it for a brand. Making a whole clip in CapCut is covered in how to make clips in CapCut.

Both work. The trade is control against licensing:

• In the app, the song comes from a library the app has licensed. Instagram says it recommends reels with music from its library or original audio made with its audio tool, and a reel using a licensed song is added to that song's audio page, where more people may find it. The cost is control: you get a start point and, at most, a volume.
• Before you upload, you mix it yourself: exact levels, ducking under the voice, fades, a loop. But the song is then part of your own audio. TikTok's terms make you responsible for the rights to any music not picked from its library, and YouTube warns that copyrighted music in a Short made outside its own tools can bring a Content ID claim.

One catch either way: a sound added in one app is licensed for that app. TikTok's Commercial Sounds may only be shared within TikTok, its Music Terms say a TikTok shared to another platform falls under that platform's rules, and Instagram's Edits app doesn't include licensed audio over 60 seconds in the videos you export. So make the video once without music, and add each app's sound when you post it there.

• YouTube Audio Library. In YouTube Studio, choose Audio library from the menu on the left: free production music and sound effects, to filter by genre, mood and length and download as MP3s. YouTube says they're copyright-safe: they won't be claimed through Content ID, and videos using them can be monetized. Creative Commons tracks need the artist credited in your description (filter by “Attribution not required” to skip them). YouTube says it can't advise on music issues off the platform, so on TikTok and Instagram, use their own libraries.
• TikTok's Commercial Music Library. Pre-cleared for anything that promotes a brand, product or service, and open to Business Accounts. Videos with it are for sharing within TikTok.
• Meta's Sound Collection. Over 14,000 royalty-free songs and sounds, safe in Reels and Stories and allowed in ads. Find it by tapping Audio in the Reels camera.
• Royalty-free libraries. “Royalty-free” means you don't pay per play, not that there are no rules. Read the license: whether it needs a credit, which platforms, ads and client work it covers, and whether it ends with your subscription. YouTube says only its own Audio Library is known to it as copyright-safe, so keep your license: having the rights is a valid reason to dispute a claim.
• Music that's yours, or a musician's written permission. Your own track, or one you commissioned, is the only kind with no library rules on it.

The apps check the sound of what you upload against music they know. On YouTube, that's Content ID. When a video matches, the owner's settings decide what happens:

• Monetize: ads run on your video and the money goes to the owner, sometimes shared with you. YouTube says this is the most common choice for music.
• Block: the video can't be watched, worldwide or in some countries.
• Track: it stays up, and the owner gets its viewing figures.

Shorts of one to three minutes are blocked whenever they have an active claim. Some of YouTube's help pages say that from September 24, 2026, new ones are no longer blocked automatically, but its main page has gone back to the old rule, so plan for a claimed Short over a minute to be blocked. Either way, a claim isn't a copyright strike: those come from copyright removal requests, a separate process.

Fixing a claim on YouTube. In YouTube Studio you can trim out the claimed part, replace the song with one from the Audio Library, erase just the song (keeping the voice), or mute all sound in the claimed parts. Done successfully, any of them clears the claim, but since June 2025 you can't undo the edit once it's saved. You can also dispute a claim if you have a valid reason, like holding the rights. These don't count, YouTube says: crediting the owner, owning a copy of the song, or not monetizing the video.

On TikTok, a sound found to break copyright rules is removed, which leaves the video muted. Tap View details on it to see why, then Change sound to pick a new one. TikTok's Music Terms add that its licenses may limit how much of a song a video can use, with up to 60 seconds generally fine. On Instagram, a song from the library can be muted later if Meta's agreements with the music's owners change. The reel stays up, and you can replace the muted track once.

Earning is a separate question. Even with permission, YouTube's monetization policies don't pay for collections of songs from different artists, or for songs only sped up or pitch-shifted. See YouTube's reused content policy, and for clips of other people's videos, is clipping legal?

Voice first. When someone is talking, people need every word, often from a phone speaker, so the music goes well under it: low enough that you'd notice it more if it stopped than while it plays. Our rule of thumb, not a standard: music about 15 to 20 dB under the voice while someone speaks, and a little higher in the gaps.

• Duck it under speech. Ducking lowers the music whenever someone talks and brings it back in the pauses. The free tool's “lower the music when someone talks” does it, iMovie on iPhone does it to background music by default, and iMovie on Mac has “Lower volume of other clips”. Without ducking, set the music low enough for the busiest stretch of talk.
• Pick music without singing for talking videos. Two sets of words at once are hard to follow. An instrumental, or a song's instrumental part, sits under a voice far better.
• Clean the voice before you add the music. The free remove background noise from video tool is made for voices and lowers music too, so run a noisy recording through it first.
• Fade in and out. A fade-in of a second or two keeps the song from starting abruptly; a fade-out of two to four seconds lets it end with the video instead of being cut off. On a short video, skip the slow fade-in: the first seconds decide whether people stay.
• Start the song where it's moving. Most songs open slowly. The free tool, TikTok's Trim and Instagram's part picker all let you start later in the track.
• Loop a short track cleanly. If the song is shorter than the video, loop it: a track made to loop, or one that repeats at the end of a musical phrase, sounds smoothest, and a fade at the very end hides the last join.

Clips cut from a long video (a podcast, a stream, a talk) keep the speaker's voice as their main sound, so music is a background job: ducked, low, or left out. The time goes into finding the moments, cutting each one, framing it vertically and captioning every word.

That part is what Clyper does. Paste a YouTube link or upload a video, and it reads the transcript to find the best moments, cuts each one on whole sentences, frames it 9:16 on whoever's talking and captions every word. Clyper doesn't add music. Add it to each clip afterwards with the free add music to video tool, with “lower the music when someone talks” on, or add a sound in TikTok, Instagram or Shorts when you post. To shorten a clip first, use the video trimmer.

For the rest of the finishing (hook text, B-roll, sound effects), see short-form video editing. For posting on YouTube, see how to make YouTube Shorts.