How to Add a Continuous Song on an Instagram Story

Adding a song to your Instagram Story is easy, but getting that same song to play continuously across multiple slides can feel like a tricky puzzle. You post the first Story and it sounds great, but the music jarringly cuts out or restarts on the next one. This guide will show you exactly how to make your music flow seamlessly from one Story to the next, giving your content a more polished and engaging feel.

Why Does Instagram Cut Off Music in Stories?

Before jumping into the solution, it helps to understand the problem. The limitation lies within the Instagram Music sticker itself. When you add a song to a Story slide, Instagram lets you select a clip of up to 15 seconds. Even if your Story slide is a 60-second video, the selected audio clip is capped at that length.

When you create a new, separate Story post, everything resets. Instagram treats it as an independent piece of content, so any music you add starts from scratch. If you have a five-part Story, this can create a frustratingly disjointed audio experience. The good news is there are a couple of solid ways to work around this, giving you full control over your Story’s soundtrack.

Method 1: The Manual Music Trimming Technique

This is the most direct way to create a continuous track using only the Instagram app. It requires a little bit of precision but allows you to flawlessly flow a single song across as many photo or video slides as you want. You are essentially acting as the audio editor, lining up 15-second clips back-to-back.

Step 1: Plan Your Story Sequence and Create the First Slide

First, decide on the photos and videos you want to use. Knowing you have three, five, or ten slides to make will help you manage the process. Once you have your content ready, open the Story editor and create your very first slide by uploading your photo or video.

Step 2: Add and Trim the First 15-Second Music Clip

With your first slide ready, it's time to add the music.

• Tap the Sticker icon (the smiley face in a square) at the top of the screen.
• Select the Music sticker.
• Search for the song you want to use and select it.
• The timeline editor will appear at the bottom. By default, it will select a popular part of the song. Drag the timeline scrubber all the way to the beginning of the song, or to the specific point where you want your soundtrack to start.
• Make sure the clip duration is set to 15 sec.
• Position the music sticker on your screen (or drag it completely off-screen to hide it) and post your Story.

Remember this exact starting point. If you picked the song to start at the 0:30 mark, make a mental note.

Step 3: Create the Second Slide and Add the Next Music Clip

Now for the most important part. Go back and create your second Story slide with your next photo or video.

• Again, tap the Sticker icon and select the Music sticker.
• Very important: Search for and select the exact same song as before.
• When the timeline editor opens, Instagram will probably suggest the same popular segment again. You need to override this.
• Drag the scrubber right to where the last clip ended. If your first clip was the very beginning (0:00 to 0:15), you will now start this second clip at the 15-second mark. You can watch the timestamp on the scrubber for precision.
• Post this second Story.

When someone views your Stories, the first slide will play the song from 0:00-0:15, and the second will immediately pick up and play from 0:15-0:30, creating a perfectly continuous effect.

Step 4: Rinse and Repeat for All Remaining Slides

Simply continue this process for every slide in your Story. For your third slide, you'll start the music clip at the 30-second mark. For the fourth, you'll start at the 45-second mark, and so on. Continue creating these back-to-back audio clips until your sequence is complete. The result is a professional-sounding Story that keeps your audience tuned in.

Method 2: Using a Third-Party Editor for Ultimate Control

While the manual method works well, it can be time-consuming if you have a lot of slides. For content that requires perfect audio-visual sync - like a product tutorial, a travel vlog compilation, or a highly produced "reel-style" Story - it’s often easier to prepare the entire video outside of Instagram first.

In this approach, you create one long video file with your visuals and music perfectly arranged, and then upload it to Instagram to be automatically split into segments.

Step 1: Assemble Your Clips in a Video Editing App

Use a mobile video editing app to build your Story. Apps like CapCut, InShot, and VN Video Editor are fantastic and mostly free options.

• Start a new project and make sure the canvas is set to a vertical 9:16 aspect ratio.
• Import all the photos and videos you want to feature in your Story.
• Arrange them on the timeline in the correct order. You can trim clips and set the duration of each photo to control the pacing.

Step 2: Add and Edit Your Soundtrack

Once your visuals are laid out, add your chosen song. Since you’re not inside Instagram, you have no 15-second limit. You can add the entire track and let it play from start to finish underneath your entire video sequence. You can adjust the song's volume, add fade-in/fade-out effects, and align specific visual beats with musical cues for a much more professional finish.

Step 3: Export the Full Video and Upload to Instagram

When you’re happy with your video, export the final file to your phone’s camera roll. It might be several minutes long, which is perfectly fine.

Now, open Instagram, go to the Story creator, and select this long video file from your gallery. Instagram will automatically recognize that it's longer than the 60-second limit for a single Story slide and will offer to split it into a series of connected segments. Just press upload, and Instagram will seamlessly create several Story slides from your video, all in the correct order.

Because the music is embedded directly into the video file, the audio will be perfectly continuous with zero effort on your part during the upload process.

Creative Ideas for Using Continuous Music

A seamless soundtrack opens up a lot of possibilities for making your brand’s content more dynamic and memorable. Here are a few ideas:

• Brand Storytelling: Craft a narrative about your brand’s mission or a "day in the life" at your company. A consistent background track makes the sequence feel like a cohesive short film.
• Multi-part Tutorials: Breaking down a complex process? Use an upbeat, continuous song to maintain energy and keep your audience watching through all the steps.
• Product Showcase: Build anticipation for a product launch. Use one climbing, dramatic song that plays across several slides, each revealing a new feature before the final "big reveal" slide.
• Travel Vlogs or Event Recaps: Stitch together photos and short clips from a trip or event. A single track connects disparate moments, turning them into a cohesive and emotional montage.

Final Thoughts

Creating stories with continuous music is an excellent way to elevate your content, hold viewer attention longer, and present your brand in a more sophisticated light. Whether you choose the precise manual method inside Instagram or the more flexible third-party app approach, both will help you move past the app's native limitations.

These creative details are what make content stand out, but managing them daily on top of planning and scheduling can be a lot to handle. At Postbase, we built our tool around the idea of simplifying the core workflow so you have more time to be creative. By using our visual calendar to plan and schedule your content across platforms, you can map out your week’s strategy in one place. That way, putting together a seamless, multi-part Instagram Story becomes a fun creative exercise, not another stressful task on your to-do list. The simple act of scheduling ahead with Postbase gives you the breathing room to get details like an uninterrupted soundtrack just right.