A photo slideshow without music feels like a film with the sound turned off. A good music track sets the pace, ties your photos together, and turns a sequence of images into a story your family and friends actually want to watch to the end.
With SlideFlow, you can create photo slideshows with music on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. It comes with a whole library of built-in music, so every slideshow you create already has a soundtrack—you don’t have to do anything. Pick a slideshow style and the music changes with the mood; switch on beat timing and the photos change on the beat. And when you want a specific song, you can add your own music too. This guide explains how music works in SlideFlow on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and how to make it yours.
How SlideFlow plays music in your slideshow
A few things are worth knowing before you start picking tracks.
Music is the slideshow’s background; what happens during videos is your call. A slideshow can freely mix photos and videos, and your videos usually bring their own sound with them. The Video sound setting decides what you hear while one plays. By default the video’s own sound plays alone and the music steps aside—you hear what was actually recorded in the moment, not a song playing over it—and picks up where it left off when the photos return. You can instead mute the videos and let the music play straight on over them, or mix the two, with the music turned down under the video’s sound.
Tracks play shuffled, or in order. Every slideshow has a list of music tracks, and by default Shuffle tracks is on, so SlideFlow picks the order randomly every time you play. That is deliberate: it means every viewing feels like a new slideshow instead of a rerun of the same one. Watch it again next month, or leave it looping at a family gathering, and it won’t sound the way it did last time. Turn the setting off—it sits on the Music Tracks screen, right above the list of tracks—and they play one after another, in the order you see them. The toggle only appears once a slideshow has at least two tracks; with one track, or none, there is nothing to shuffle.
The soundtrack keeps its place. Jump to another photo in the player—tap it in the filmstrip, or step back a couple of pictures—and the music simply plays on: the same track, from where it was, rather than a new one from the top. Videos are the same. When a video’s own sound pauses the music, the track picks up where it left off once the photos return, instead of starting over. A new track begins only when the one playing ends.
Music fades rather than cuts. Tracks fade in and out instead of snapping on and off, and the fade-out is timed to land exactly where the music has to give way. There are two such moments. One is a video that brings its own sound, when Video sound is set to play it alone: the music dips away over the second before the video starts, so it steps aside rather than being chopped off the instant the video’s audio takes over—and fades back in, from where it paused, when the photos return. The other is the end of the slideshow, where the music fades out over the last couple of seconds instead of stopping dead. If you’ve set an ending transition, the fade is stretched to match it exactly, so the music and the picture reach silence and black together. A repeating slideshow never reaches that end, so there the music simply carries on into the next pass.
By the same logic, a slideshow that opens with a video that has its own audio starts silent when Video sound is set to Play, rather than playing a swell of music that would be cut a second later. With Mix with music, the music starts at once, already turned down under the video.
The photos can change on the beat. With Transition on music beats on, each photo holds a touch longer or shorter than the set duration so that the change into the next one lands on a downbeat of the music. It works with the built-in tracks on every device; with your own music it needs macOS 27 or iOS 27.
Built-in music: nothing to set up
SlideFlow includes forty-nine built-in tracks, grouped into five moods—Happy, Energetic, Relax, Romantic and Dramatic—and new slideshows come with music already selected. Create a slideshow and press play: it already has a soundtrack, with no need to find music files or add tracks yourself.
The five moods are also the names of five slideshow styles, and that is no coincidence: picking a style sets the pace, transitions and animation and brings every track of the matching mood. A new slideshow starts as Happy, with the Happy tracks; pick Romantic and the Romantic tracks take their place, pick Relax and you get calm, mostly drumless music to go with the slow dissolves. The soundtrack still isn’t the same every time, since the tracks play shuffled by default—and a style never silently discards tracks you picked yourself, as described in the styles guide.
All forty-nine tracks were made for SlideFlow. They are matched in loudness, so a quiet track never follows a loud one by accident, and beat timing works with them on every device.
That is the fastest path to a good result: add your photos and videos, and let SlideFlow’s default style and music do the rest. Everything below is for when you want more control.
Adding your own music
You can replace or supplement the built-in tracks with your own music from two sources.
Audio files
Common audio files can be added on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. This is the most flexible option, and the one to use if you want the same music available everywhere: every audio file you add goes into your My Music library within SlideFlow, which syncs with your other devices over iCloud—so a song you add once is ready to use in any slideshow, on any of your devices.
My Music: one library for all your slideshows
My Music is the single home for your own music files, new in SlideFlow 4.0. Earlier versions copied an audio file into every slideshow that used it; now the file lives once in the shared library, and your slideshows refer to it from there. Add a track once and it’s available to every slideshow on every device—and if you add the same file a second time, SlideFlow notices and keeps a single library entry rather than a duplicate. (Photos and videos are different: for them, SlideFlow 4.0 lets you choose between copying files in and referencing them in place. Music files aren’t part of that choice—they always live in My Music.)
You’ll meet My Music in two places. While adding music to a slideshow, Add My Music in the Add Music menu shows your library, so you can pick from the tracks you’ve already gathered—and Import Files on that same screen brings in new audio files: they join your library and arrive selected, ready to add to the slideshow. And for housekeeping, open My Music from SlideFlow’s own settings: there too you can import files or simply drag & drop music onto the screen—entire folders of it included—and, in addition, remove tracks you no longer want, or use Remove Unused to clear out everything no slideshow plays anymore. Removing a track that slideshows still use warns you first, so you won’t silence a slideshow by accident.
Your Music library (iPhone and iPad)
On iPhone and iPad you can also pull songs straight from your Music library. It’s convenient, but there are three limitations to know about up front:
- It’s iPhone and iPad only. On Mac, only audio files can be used. This is the one real functional difference between the Mac and mobile versions of SlideFlow.
- It doesn’t sync. Music imported from the Music library stays on the one iPhone or iPad you imported it on. It won’t reach your other devices through iCloud, even if the slideshow itself does—see how music syncs across devices.
- Streamed music won’t work. The Music app has copyright restrictions, so you can only import songs you actually own—songs you imported yourself or purchased. Tracks that only exist as an Apple Music stream aren’t available.
None of these are SlideFlow’s choices—they follow from how Apple’s Music library works. If you want a specific song on every device, add it as an audio file instead.
Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services
The question we get most often about music is whether a slideshow can play a song from Spotify or Apple Music. The short answer is no—and not just in SlideFlow. Streaming services only let their own apps play their music. Other apps cannot fetch a streamed song, let alone put it into a slideshow or an exported video, and that also holds for songs you have downloaded for offline listening within those apps. Only music you own—audio files, or songs you bought or imported yourself—can be added as your own music.
There is a simple way to get the same result while you watch, though: let the music app provide the soundtrack. A slideshow with no music tracks and no video sound is silent, and on iPhone and iPad a silent slideshow leaves other apps’ sound alone instead of interrupting it the moment it starts. So:
- Open the slideshow’s Music Tracks screen and remove its tracks with Remove All. The Gallery style does this for you, with long holds to match.
- If the slideshow contains videos, set Video sound to Mute, so they bring no sound of their own.
- Start your playlist in Spotify, Apple Music, or any other music app.
- Switch back to SlideFlow and play the slideshow. The music keeps playing underneath.
On Mac, apps never interrupt each other’s sound, so removing the music tracks is all it takes—a video’s own sound would still play on top of the music, though, so mute the videos there too. Playing on a TV works the same way: the TV shows the pictures while your music app plays on your device or on a speaker.
This covers playback only. An exported video of such a slideshow has no soundtrack, because the streamed music never reaches SlideFlow. For a video with music, use the built-in tracks or your own audio files.
How to add music to a slideshow in SlideFlow
- Open a slideshow.
- Open the slideshow settings, for example using the Customize button.
- Click or tap Music, the row right under Style. It shows how many tracks the slideshow currently has, and whether they play shuffled or in order.
You are now on the Music Tracks screen, showing the background music for this slideshow. From here you can:
- Play tracks to preview them.
- Drag them to reorder, which matters when Shuffle tracks is off.
- Remove the ones you don’t want, one at a time or all at once with Remove All.
- Add more with the Add Music button: built-in tracks, your own music from My Music, or—on iPhone and iPad—a song from your Music app’s library.
Shuffle tracks sits at the top of this screen, above the list, once the slideshow has at least two tracks.
Add Music offers three sources. Add Built-in Tracks opens the library grouped by the five moods: play any track to audition it, tap a row to select it, and use Select All on a mood’s header to take that whole group—it turns into Deselect All once the mood is fully selected. The add button then counts what you have picked, reading Add 5 Tracks or however many it is, and adds them all in one go, in the order they appear on screen. So a couple of Happy tracks and something from Relax is one visit to the library rather than one visit per track. (A mix like that counts as your selection from then on: a style you pick later asks before replacing it.) Add My Music opens your own music library within SlideFlow, where you pick from the tracks you’ve collected or use Import Files to bring in new audio files on the spot. And on iPhone and iPad, Add from Music App pulls a song from your Music app’s library.
There’s one more door for music files: drop them—or pick them—right in the slideshow’s grid of photos and videos, even mixed with media files in one go. Audio isn’t rejected there; it lands in the slideshow’s music, through My Music like any other audio file.
Turning the default music on or off
SlideFlow lets you define most settings at three levels—the Default Slideshow Settings for all newly created slideshows, the Slideshow Settings for one slideshow, and the Media Settings for a single photo or video. The first of those live in SlideFlow’s own settings rather than in a slideshow. Music works a little differently.
In the Default Slideshow Settings, music is a single switch right under the Style row instead of a track list: Start with built-in music. Its footnote names what it adds—Adds the Happy tracks to each new slideshow, or the tracks of whichever default style you have chosen. Leave it on, and every new slideshow you create gets that music. Turn it off, and new slideshows start silent, ready for you to add exactly the tracks you want. (Make Gallery the default and the switch has nothing to add: new slideshows start without music either way.) Shuffle music tracks sits in the Sound section behind Show all settings, together with the Video sound default, and decides how new slideshows start out—it is the same setting you will find later on each slideshow’s Music Tracks screen.
Everything else about music—which tracks play and in what order—belongs to the individual slideshow, on the Music Tracks screen described above. That is by design: a default list of particular tracks would mean every slideshow sounds the same; a default mood leaves room for the shuffle.
Music under your videos
Videos bring their own sound, and the Video sound setting, in the General section of the slideshow settings, decides what happens to the music while one plays. Three choices:
- Play (the default): the video’s own sound plays alone. The music fades out just before the video, pauses while it plays, and picks up where it left off when the photos return.
- Mute: the video plays silently and the music plays on over it, exactly as over a photo. The choice for clips that are there for their pictures—a slow pan over a bay, children running—where wind and chatter add nothing.
- Mix with music: the video’s own sound plays with the music turned down quietly under it, the way a documentary keeps its score running under an interview. Voices stay clear, and the mood never breaks.
The setting applies to every video in the slideshow, and each video can override it in its own settings—so a slideshow of muted clips can still keep the one with the birthday song audible. The Default Slideshow Settings carry a default for new slideshows, in their Sound section.
Music and the beat
Transition on music beats, under Transitions in the slideshow settings, times the slide changes to the music: each photo holds a little longer or shorter than the set duration so that the change lands on a downbeat. The shorter the transition, the more it matters, and with no transitions at all it is essential: a hard cut on a timer feels like clicking through a folder, a hard cut on the beat is how a music video is edited—and sometimes looks better than any transition. The fast styles—Happy, Happy Rhythm, Energetic, Dramatic—rely on it, two of them with no transitions at all, while Relax and Romantic leave it off, since a slow dissolve has no sharp moment to land and calm music has little pulse to land on; so does Gallery, which plays without music.
Beat timing works with the built-in tracks on every Mac, iPhone, and iPad. With your own music—files in My Music, or songs from your Music app’s library—it needs macOS 27 or iOS 27. On earlier systems the switch says so—Only works with built-in tracks—and your own tracks play with the plain duration. It also depends on the music itself: the timing follows a clear, steady beat, and it is not guaranteed on every track—calm, ambient, or free-flowing music may offer no beat to follow, and the slides then simply keep their set duration.
Which transitions gain the most from it, and why, is in the transitions guide.
A few tips for better results
- Start from a style. The five moods are five styles: pick Romantic and the pace, the transitions and the music all agree. Then swap in your own tracks if a particular song belongs to the memory.
- Match the music to the pace. A slow, calm track suits landscapes and portraits held a little longer on screen; something more upbeat suits a quick recap of a trip or a party. The styles do exactly this, which is why each one changes the duration along with the music.
- Keep beat timing on for cuts and quick transitions. The shorter the transition, the more the timing counts, and a hard cut lives or dies by it: cuts and wipes landing on the beat are what make a slideshow feel edited to its music, and a well-timed cut sometimes looks better than any transition. With slow dissolves the setting makes little difference either way.
- Mute the clips that are there for their pictures. Set Video sound to Mute and the music carries straight through a slideshow of short clips—then override it on the one video whose sound matters.
- Add several tracks for longer slideshows. One song rarely covers a long slideshow comfortably, and a varied list keeps the mood moving.
- Turn shuffle off when the order matters. Shuffle is on by default, which is what you want for a slideshow you come back to: each viewing feels like a new slideshow rather than a rerun. But if you have a particular opening track in mind, or you want the mood to build from calm to upbeat, switch it off on the Music Tracks screen and arrange the tracks yourself by dragging them.
- Let the picture vary too. Shuffled tracks change what a slideshow sounds like on each play; creative filters restyle your photos and videos as they play, and a set of transitions varies how one gives way to the next. Together they make a slideshow you leave looping feel new on every pass.
- Watch it before you share it. SlideFlow generates slideshows on the fly, so playback starts almost immediately—trying a different track costs you seconds, not a full video re-render.
When you’re happy with the result, play it on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, cast it to a compatible DLNA TV, or export it as a video in horizontal, vertical, or square format for YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok. Your music tracks are included in the exported video automatically—though the shuffle setting is resolved at export time, so the file keeps one particular order of the tracks.
(Note: New to SlideFlow? The step-by-step tutorials for Mac or iPhone and iPad walk you through your first slideshow in a few minutes—then come back here to customize the music. More questions are answered in the SlideFlow FAQ).
