How to create a Make your Own (MYO) card for Yoto and upload content to it
As more and more parents hear about the power (and low cost!) of Yoto MYO cards the more messages I get about my custom labels for MYO Yoto Cards and a lot of people also want to make their first MYO card! I answer a lot of questions about how to make these on your phone or computer, so I thought I'd finally write a quick guide I could share. I hope you find it useful!
Some definitions
Some terms I'll be using in this guide:
- MYO - Make Your Own, the cards you use for custom yoto content
- Icons - The pixel art that appears on Yoto Players while audio is playing, they are 16x16 pixels
- Playlist - A list of audio files and corresponding icons you create in your Yoto account that you can link to MYO cards
- Cover Art - The art that appears in the app for a specific playlist
Step 1: Creating a Playlist
You can start making a playlist before you even buy MYO cards! Playlists are a separate concept from the actual card - you can even save the same playlist to multiple MYO cards!
It's easiest to create a playlist in your browser on a computer, but you can also use your smartphone. You can do this in your phone's browser or inside the Yoto app, but in this guide I'll focus on a computer browser as there are some great tools to be used to make creating and managing playlists much easier. If you'd like me to create a full guide to using the Yoto app, reach out to me!
Go to the Yoto playlist website
Open up your browser (I recommend using Google Chrome to use a tool later on) and head to https://my.yotoplay.com, the Yoto site you use to create playlists.
Click "Get Started" and log in with your Yoto account.
Click "Add Playlist" - it should be the first tile shown (once you make some you will see their images here like you see from my account).
Once you get to the next screen, there are several things you will use. This is the order I usually set them up:
- Name your playlist here! Usually the book/album title.
- Optionally, add a description. Can be helpful to list the author, narrator, etc. Or if you're giving this as a gift, a quick "Happy Birthday" message or similar!
- Set the album cover here. I like to use the same art I am putting on my label for the eventual MYO card, but for this size ideally you search something like "______ poster" in google, or use the book cover! If you're a fancy person and using canva or photoshop, create your image at 748x1248px. You can get random art as well by using the button)
- Click here to begin to upload MP3 files, there is a 100 track limit per card and you can select multiple at a time to upload
- Instead of uploading audio you can link a card to a streaming radio station, you can only link one per playlist (a nice test one is the Christmas Radio Station from iHeartRadio, paste https://n01b-e2.revma.ihrhls.com/zc4596)
After you're done those steps, you'll see something like this:
There's one major thing missing! The Yoto Icon. These are the pixel-based images that show up on Yoto Players when a track plays. You can see in my example, two need to be set! Otherwise, your little one won't be able to tell which track is which.
Once you click the button next to a track, you can select one of many great icons Yoto provides:
The other tab, My Icons, will allow you to upload your own icons. If you're not a pixel art photoshop wizard, no sweat! There is an AMAZING resource -https://yotoicons.com/ where people upload their own icon creations and you can search and download them!
Use the default icons, or download some from yotoicons.com and upload them in the My Icons tab. After you set every track, carry on!
At this point you're good to go! You just look to the bottom of the page and click the CREATE button!
You're done! You've created your first playlist!
Link your Playlist to a MYO card
You can play your playlist now in the Yoto app, which means it will work on Android Auto or Carplay in cards as well! Yoto's car apps are very useful when you want to play any Yoto content on road trips for everyone to hear :)
I'm assuming you're reading this guide to put your playlist onto a MYO card, though. So, first make sure you have some MYO cards in hand! Grab them from your local Yoto site in a 5 or 10 pack, they're great value and you will get Yoto tokens on your purchase.
For this step you'll use the Yoto App on your phone to link a playlist to the card. Also, don't worry, you can always change which playlist is linked to the MYO card in future!
First, open up your Yoto app and navigate to the Playlists tab and select your new playlist:
From in the playlist entry you select Link to a card at the very bottom of the screen.
You will be given the option to use your phone if you have a newer phone with tap-to-pay/NFC functions. This is easier to use, so go with that if you can!
You can tap the MYO card to the back of your phone at this point and you'll be all done! If you instead chose to use your player, you will need to select the player to use:
Choose the one you want to use, and a red dot will appear on the player. Insert your MYO card and you'll be all done!
You've done it! You now have a working MYO card!
Decorating/Adding Art to MYO Cards
Now this is where I come in. You can always place an order to have me design the art and create awesome custom labels (waterproof! durable!) for your cards. Otherwise, you also have many great options to differentiate when you inevitably get addicted to making MYOs!
MYO card packs come with stickers, so that's one option! Stick one on and label it. Great if your kid(s) are old enough to read, or if you have different art. Lots of folks will also use related character stickers from the audio to let littler kids know which card is which.
You can get printable sticker paper on Amazon, or some people will buy pouches that adhere to the MYO cards so they can print little images and slide them in and out as the MYO content changes (called a "library" system online). For how-tos on these and other ideas, check out the MYO Creative Group on Facebook!
Apps to Make MYO Playlists Easier
MYO Studio is a great FREE app extension for Google Chrome made and maintained by one amazing guy in the UK. If you install it into Chrome it will integrate great features into the Yoto Playlist interface, such as being able to search YotoIcons.com or automatically adding chapter numbers as icons from right on the page. It updates often and it's the #1 MYO tool! If you use it a bunch, donate the creator a coffee!
Sharing MYO Cards and Playlists
If you have uploaded your OWN recorded content to a Playlist and Linked it to a MYO card you can give it to someone else with a Yoto and they'll be able to play it!
If you want to send a playlist to a friend with a Yoto you can also do it digitally via email, chat, sms, etc. Just click the sharing link in the top left of the playlist page:
You will have to accept Yoto's sharing policy here, which basically says sharing copywritten material is against Yoto TOS (though not blocked). What Yoto seems to look for is playlists that have been shared too much is remove them in case they are mass-sharing copywritten material or someone is selling their own bootleg Yoto cards.
If you have a piece of audio you want to share with many many others that you own the copywrite to (in my example, my Mum is an author and wrote and narrated the book), the best way to share it with many people is as an mp3 with saved icons and art so they can make the card in their own account! If you share a playlist or MYO card with a few friends you should be fine, but if you're thinking 5+, I'd share the audio itself (and a link to this handy article if needed!)
Additional Info/FAQs
You can actually link ANY Yoto card in your library, both physical or digital to a MYO card. Some people do this if their kids lose cards often, that way you only misplace a $3 MYO and not a $50 Harry Potter card. Linking a digital card to a MYO is a great way to use digital cards like any normal one, and avoid using them on your phone, plus allowing you to play them when not on wifi.