Yoto Make Your Own cards: how to make one, and what to put on it

By Andrei Baciu

Co-founder of Wunderli and architect of its story engine

Updated 27 October 2026

A Yoto Make Your Own card is a blank card you link to a playlist of your own MP3 or M4A files, made at my.yotoplay.com or in the Yoto app. Once linked, the card plays that playlist on the Yoto Player like any shop-bought card, and you can overwrite it with something new whenever you like.

What makes the card worth having is what you put on it. Most families start with a recording from a grandparent. A story made around your own child is the other obvious candidate; with Wunderli that is coming soon, and the second half of this page shows how it will work.

The Yoto details on this page come from Yoto's own product and help pages, checked 27 October 2026.

Making a card, start to finish

1. Have the audio ready. Yoto says you can use any content you own in MP3 or AAC/M4A format. On a phone, keep the files somewhere you can find them in its file system.
2. Start a playlist. On a computer, go to my.yotoplay.com, open My Playlists and make a new one. In the Yoto app, tap New Playlist under Make Your Own, which opens the same dashboard in the browser.
3. Upload and save. Add the files, put them in order and save. From a phone, Yoto's instructions are to find the file in the phone's file system, tap it to add it, then tap Update.
4. Link the card. In the app, open the playlist, tap the three-dot menu and choose Link to a Card. Insert the blank card into the player and tap Link. A red record icon appears, then a green tick.
5. Play it once at home. Yoto says that the first time each card plays, the player needs Wi-Fi to fetch the audio. After that the card plays anywhere without internet, so do the first play before the long drive, not during it.

What fits on one card

The limits come from Yoto's help article How much audio fits on a Make Your Own card. In practice the five-hour ceiling is generous: a card can hold a whole collection of bedtime stories, where a Creative Tonie stops at 90 minutes. Our Creative Tonie guide covers that box.

Coming soon: a story made for your child, on a card

Here is how the route with Wunderli will work once "Download MP3" is in the app. Download the app from the App Store or Google Play. With your child beside you, you go through six steps and shape the hero, the world and the mood from their ideas. The character name is the one thing you type, so the hero can carry your child's name. Wunderli writes the story and narrates it with several narration voices, in 10+, 15+ or 20+ minutes, in English, French or German.

"Download MP3" is coming soon. Then the finished story will land on your phone as a file, for private family use, and go into a Make Your Own playlist like any other track. One story is one track, well inside the 60-minute track limit, and you will be able to add a new story to the same playlist each week until the card is full. Join the waitlist and we will tell you as soon as "Download MP3" is ready. Until then: get Wunderli, the first story is free, and listen in the app.

Wunderli is there to fill the Yoto you already have, not to replace it, once "Download MP3" is live. If you have not bought a player yet, Toniebox vs Yoto compares the two boxes, and our Yoto alternative page explains listening on the phone instead.

Can you reuse a card?

Yes. On its help page Can I reuse a Make Your Own card, Yoto's answer is "a simple, yes". You repeat the steps you took to make the card, and the new content overwrites the old. Leave the player charging, online and idle afterwards so it can update the card. That makes a single card a decent home for a rotating story of the week.

Spotify, Audible and iTunes

Spotify does not work. Yoto explains that Spotify is a streaming service, so you cannot download its music as MP3 or AAC, and that there is currently no support for Spotify playlists. Audiobooks bought on iTunes are usually copy-protected and cannot be used. Music you own from iTunes is a different case: it is AAC/M4A and works.

One more rule from Yoto's getting-started guide: only make and share cards with audio you created or have permission to use. Recordings of your own family sit comfortably inside that, and so will a Wunderli story saved for your own household once "Download MP3" arrives.

Ideas for the first card

• A grandparent reading the book they read to you, recorded on a phone and sent as a file.
• A Christmas story for December, read aloud by you today, or built around your child with Wunderli once "Download MP3" is ready. Our personalised Christmas story guide covers it, and there is a short one to read aloud in Christmas stories for kids.
• A "first day" card: a message from each parent before a new school or a stay away from home.

To see the six steps in the app before you start, look at how Wunderli works.

Yoto, Yoto Player and Yoto Mini are trademarks of their owner; tonies®, Toniebox and Creative-Tonie are trademarks of tonies; Spotify, iTunes and Audible are trademarks of their owners. Wunderli has no business relationship with any of them.

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