How to Add Videos and Audio to a PowerPoint Presentation

Applies to: Microsoft PowerPoint (Microsoft 365, PowerPoint 2021, PowerPoint 2019), Windows 11, Windows 10
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-08-09

Summary

Dropping a video onto a slide takes two clicks; getting it to behave — start when you want, stop showing a black rectangle, run with the sound off, and still fit in an email — takes about ten minutes of setup that pays for itself the moment you present. This article covers inserting video and audio, recording a narration, the Playback tab controls worth knowing, trimming, poster frames, captions, and compression.

In this guide

• 1. Decide whether to embed the file or link to it online
• 2. Insert a video from your device
• 3. Insert an online video from YouTube, Stream, or SharePoint
• 4. Add audio from your PC or record a narration
• 5. Set how and when the media plays
• 6. Trim the clip and choose the frame the slide shows first
• 7. Add captions so the video works with the sound off
• 8. Compress the media before you send the deck

Before You Start

• Desktop PowerPoint for Windows. Compress Media does not exist in PowerPoint for Mac or PowerPoint for the web.
• The video or audio file you want to use. PowerPoint for the web accepts video files up to 256 MB.
• A microphone if you plan to record a narration. A desktop with no headset plugged in has none.
• An .mp4 file is the safe format to work with. If yours is older — .wmv, .avi, .mpg — convert it first; Fix Videos Not Playing in a PowerPoint Presentation covers how and why.
• No admin rights required.

Instructions

1. Decide whether to embed the file or link to it online

This one choice decides most of what can go wrong later, so make it deliberately rather than by whichever menu item you reach first.

1. Choose This Device to embed. PowerPoint copies the whole video into the .pptx, so the deck grows by roughly the size of the file and the video plays on any machine you hand it to — no network, no sign-in, no shared folder.
2. Choose Online Video to link. PowerPoint stores a web address and nothing else, so the deck stays small, but the video streams live at the moment you click it. The room needs working internet, and a Microsoft Stream or SharePoint video also needs the machine signed in as an account allowed to see it.
3. Embed when you will present from a conference-room or borrowed laptop, from guest Wi-Fi, or when you are handing the deck to someone else to run.
4. Link when the deck is being emailed round for people to watch at their own desks on your own network, or when the file is far too large to attach.
5. Weigh one more thing before you link: Microsoft's playback settings — the Start timing, full screen, looping, trimming — apply only to videos inserted from your computer, network, or OneDrive. An online video does not get them.
6. Watch the file size either way. An embedded five-minute clip pushes most decks past a 25 MB mail limit, and How to Shrink a Large PowerPoint File is the full pass for bringing that back down.

2. Insert a video from your device

Embedding is the route that survives being carried to another machine, and it is three clicks.

1. Open the slide that will hold the video and click an empty area of it.
2. Click the Insert tab, then click Video in the Media group at the right end of the ribbon.
3. Select This Device. In PowerPoint 2019 and earlier this item reads Video on My PC. The same menu offers Stock Videos, Microsoft's own royalty-free library, if you need filler footage.
4. In the file dialog, select your video and click the Insert button itself. The small arrow beside it hides a Link to File option, which stores a file path instead of the video and is the usual reason a deck plays on one laptop and not another.
5. The video lands on the slide with a play button over it and a timeline bar underneath. Click the play button and watch a few seconds run.
6. Drag the corner handles to size and position it, then press Ctrl + S. The file size grows by roughly the size of the video — that growth is your proof the video is inside the deck rather than pointing at it.

3. Insert an online video from YouTube, Stream, or SharePoint

A linked video keeps the deck small, at the cost of depending on the room's network every single time.

1. Open the video in a browser and copy its address from the address bar.
2. In PowerPoint, click Insert > Video > Online Video.
3. Paste the address into the Online Video dialog box and click Insert.
4. The player appears on the slide with a play button over it. Click it and let the first few seconds run to confirm the address resolved.
5. If PowerPoint refuses the address, the video's owner has blocked embedding. Microsoft's own note is that not every online video is allowed to be embedded — check on the video's site, and fall back to embedding a local copy (step 2) or opening the page in a browser tab during the session.
6. Test it again on the machine you will actually present from. A link that works at your desk proves nothing about the room.

4. Add audio from your PC or record a narration

Audio arrives on the slide as a speaker icon, from a file or from your own voice.

1. To use an existing file, click Insert > Audio > Audio on My PC, select the file, and click Insert. A speaker icon appears on the slide with a small play bar under it.
2. To record instead, click Insert > Audio > Record Audio.
3. Type a name for the clip when PowerPoint asks for one, so you can tell several recordings apart on a busy slide later.
4. Click Record and speak. Click Stop when you finish, then click Play to hear it back. Click Record again to replace the take before you commit it.
5. Click OK. The clip appears on the slide as a speaker icon.
6. Position the icon somewhere out of the way, or hide it during the show — step 5 covers that.
7. A recorded clip lives only inside the deck. Deleting the speaker icon removes it, and Ctrl + Z brings it straight back — but once you delete it and save, that take is gone, so record long narrations into a separate audio file you keep on disk.

5. Set how and when the media plays

The Playback tab appears on the ribbon the moment you select a video or an audio clip, and everything worth setting lives there.

1. Click the video or the speaker icon on the slide, then click the Playback tab.
2. Open the Start list and choose how the clip begins. In Click Sequence plays it when you next click to advance, Automatically plays it the moment the slide arrives, and When Clicked On waits until you click the clip itself.
3. For video, work through the Video Options group:
   • Play Full Screen — the clip expands to fill the screen while it runs, then hands you back to the slide.
   • Loop until Stopped — the clip restarts from the beginning each time it ends, until you move on. Useful for a silent backdrop; distracting behind a speaker.
   • Rewind after Playing — the clip returns to its first frame when it finishes instead of freezing on the last one.
   • Hide While Not Playing — the video frame stays invisible until it plays. Pair this with Automatically or an animation trigger, or the video never appears at all.
   • Volume — sets the clip's level relative to everything else.
4. For audio, work through the Audio Options group:
   • Play Across Slides — one clip keeps running as you advance, rather than stopping when the slide changes. This is an audio setting only; PowerPoint does not play a video across slides.
   • Loop until Stopped — the clip repeats until the show moves past it.
   • Hide During Show — the speaker icon disappears from the slide during the presentation. Combine it with Automatically, since an icon nobody can see is an icon nobody can click.
   • Play in Background — one click that applies the background-music combination, so the clip carries on across the slides instead of stopping at the next one.
   • Fade Duration — the Fade In and Fade Out boxes ramp the sound up and down over the number of seconds you type, which stops music arriving like a slap.
5. Press F5 and click through the slide once. Slide show mode uses a different playback path from the editing view, so it is the only test that proves the settings.

6. Trim the clip and choose the frame the slide shows first

Trimming cuts the dead time off the front of a clip, and a poster frame replaces the black rectangle a slide shows before playback starts.

1. Select the clip and click the Playback tab, then click Trim Video — or Trim Audio for a sound clip.
2. In the dialog, drag the green marker on the left to where the clip should start, and the red marker on the right to where it should end. The time boxes update as you drag.
3. Use Play, Pause, Next Frame and Previous Frame to land on the exact frame rather than eyeballing the slider.
4. Click OK. Trimming is not a cut — PowerPoint stores the two markers and plays between them, so reopening Trim Video and dragging them back out gives you the whole clip again.
5. Now set the still image the slide shows before playback. Scrub the timeline under the video to a frame with something recognisable on it.
6. Click the video's formatting tab — Video Format in Microsoft 365, or Format under Video Tools in PowerPoint 2019. If neither is on the ribbon, click the video itself: both tabs appear only while a video is selected.
7. Click Poster Frame on that tab and select Current Frame. The slide now shows the frame you chose instead of whatever the video opens on, which is very often black.

7. Add captions so the video works with the sound off

Captions come from a caption file rather than from PowerPoint, and they earn their place in any room where the audio fails or somebody needs to read along.

1. Get a caption file for the video. PowerPoint reads WebVTT files (.vtt) from PowerPoint 2016 onwards, and SubRip files (.srt) saved with UTF-8 encoding from version 2411 onwards.
2. Select the video on the slide and click the Playback tab.
3. Click Insert Captions, then select Insert Captions from the menu that drops down.
4. Select your caption file and click Insert. From version 2111 the same command also sits on the Accessibility ribbon, and from version 2208 on the video's right-click menu.
5. Play the video and confirm the text appears in step with the speech. A caption file whose timings were written for a different edit of the video runs progressively further out.
6. Keep the caption file alongside the deck. Compression discards embedded subtitles, and you will want the file to put them back.

8. Compress the media before you send the deck

Compressing trades picture quality for megabytes, and it is the difference between a deck that attaches to an email and one that does not.

1. Save a copy first: click File > Save a Copy, add -original to the filename, and click Save. Compression re-encodes the media inside the deck and the original quality does not come back once you save over it.
2. In the working file, click File > Info.
3. Click Compress Media in the centre column. Newer builds group it under Multimedia; Office 2016 lists it under Media Size and Performance. The button appears only when the deck holds embedded media — a linked or online video adds nothing to compress.
4. Choose a quality. Current builds offer Full HD (1080p), HD (720p) and Standard (480p); Office 2016 labels the same three Presentation Quality, Internet Quality and Low Quality.
5. Pick HD (720p) unless you have a reason not to. It survives a projector, where Standard (480p) goes visibly soft on anything larger than a laptop screen, and it saves far more than Full HD (1080p).
6. Wait while the progress window works through each file, then read the space saved and click Close.
7. Play every clip once and press Ctrl + S. Microsoft's own note on this process is that embedded subtitles and alternate audio tracks are lost — re-insert captions from step 7 if the video had them.

Then do the one thing that catches everything else: copy the finished deck onto the machine you will present from, open it there, and play every clip in the editing view and again with F5 in slide show mode. If something refuses to run, Fix Videos Not Playing in a PowerPoint Presentation works through the causes in the order that resolves fastest.

Troubleshooting

WARNING

An online video is not in your deck. It streams from the internet at the instant you click it, so it needs working network access in the room — and a Microsoft Stream or SharePoint video also needs the machine signed in as an account allowed to see it. Guest and conference-room networks block video sites far more often than the desk network you built the deck on. When you cannot test the room in advance, embed the file instead.

Symptom / Error	Potential Cause	Solution
Deck jumped from 3 MB to 180 MB after adding a video	The video is embedded, which is what makes it travel	Compress it with File > Info > Compress Media (step 8), or share a OneDrive link instead of an attachment — see How to Shrink a Large PowerPoint File.
Playback options are greyed out or missing	The selected clip is an online video	Those settings apply only to video inserted from your computer, network, or OneDrive. Insert the file from the device instead (step 2).
Slide shows a black rectangle until you click it	No poster frame set, and the video opens on a dark frame	Scrub to a frame with content on it and set Poster Frame > Current Frame (step 6).
Video never appears during the slide show	Hide While Not Playing is on with nothing to trigger it	Clear Hide While Not Playing on the Playback tab, or set Start to Automatically so the clip plays itself (step 5).
Music stops at the next slide	The clip is set to play on one slide only	Select the speaker icon and check Play Across Slides on the Playback tab (step 5).
Record Audio produces silence	No microphone, or the wrong input device selected	Open Settings > System > Sound — or search Settings for Sound settings — and confirm a device is listed under Input. A desktop with no headset attached has no microphone at all.
Captions do not show	No caption file inserted, or captions switched off in the player	Insert a .vtt or .srt file with Playback > Insert Captions (step 7). If the file is in place, look for the captions control on the video's own playback bar while it runs.
PowerPoint refuses a YouTube address	The video's owner has blocked embedding	Check on the video's site whether embedding is allowed. Otherwise embed a local copy (step 2), or open the page in a browser tab before the session and switch to it.

Related Articles

• Fix Videos Not Playing in a PowerPoint Presentation
• How to Shrink a Large PowerPoint File
• How to Export a PowerPoint Presentation as a Video

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