Availability: This feature is live on web now. Mobile support is coming soon.
What you need first
Trending audio (along with location, user, and product tagging) requires an Instagram account linked to a Facebook Page. If yours isn't linked yet, tapping the music note icon in your post builder will show an "Update Instagram account to ADD MUSIC" prompt instead of the picker. From there:
- Click See how to link a Facebook Business page to your creator or business account.
- Once that's done, come back and click Activate to update your Planoly account.
After activating, the music note icon will open the full Add sound picker instead.
How to add a sound
- Click Create Post, then select Instagram Post/Reel.
- Upload your video.
- Tap the music note icon in the toolbar to open Add sound.
- You'll land on the Music tab by default, showing what's trending. Switch to Original audio for sounds pulled from other creators' Reels.
- Want something specific? Type a keyword or artist name into the search bar.
- Tap any row to select it. On the Original audio tab, you'll hear it loop in the preview player. On the Music tab, you generally won't hear a preview, most trending songs are popular commercial tracks that Instagram hasn't licensed for third-party playback, so you're picking by title and artist rather than by ear.
- Once a track is selected, you'll see:
- Original media volume: your video's own audio (defaults to 100%)
- Music volume: the track's volume (defaults to 100%)
- Loop the sound: toggle this on to repeat the track if your video runs longer than the clip
- A reminder that Instagram always starts the sound at 0:00, it can't be trimmed
- Hit Save, or Cancel to back out. Already added one and want it gone? Use Remove sound.
Your selection sticks around too. Come back to a draft days later and your sound is still saved and still playable. Keep in mind, even for Original audio, playback only happens inside the Add sound popup, you won't hear the track play back in the main post builder view once it's saved.
Music vs. Original audio
You'll see two tabs in the picker:
- Music: licensed tracks. Heads up, Instagram doesn't share artwork or previews for a lot of its commercially licensed music, so you'll often see a plain music note icon instead of album art, and many tracks are name-only with no audio preview. You can still add any of them.
- Original audio: audio pulled from other creators' Reels, shown with the creator's avatar and username. You can preview these within the popup.
Each tab has its own search and its own trending list, since Instagram treats them as two separate catalogs.
What you can't do (yet)
A few things are on Instagram's side, not ours, so it's worth knowing upfront:
- No trimming. Every sound starts at 0:00.
- No preview for most Music tracks. Since most trending songs are popular commercial releases, Instagram often doesn't license them for third-party audio preview, so you're selecting by title and artist rather than listening first.
- Not every trending sound will show up. Instagram only makes tracks available that are licensed for third-party apps like Planoly, so you might not find every song you've seen trending in the app itself.
If a track can't be used in ads, you'll see a note on it once selected, just so you're not caught off guard.
Reminder posts
If your Reel is set to Reminder instead of Auto-post, the picker still works fully, you can browse, select, and save a sound. It just won't attach automatically since Reminder posts publish manually. Don't worry, we'll include the track name and artist in your reminder notification so you know exactly what to add by hand.