So, your Google Slides presentation is ready—every slide looks polished, the content is spot-on, and the visuals are eye-catching. But something’s missing.
As you rehearse your delivery, it feels flat.
Live narration often leads to awkward pauses, timing mismatches, and the stress of presenting in real time. Background noise or lost thoughts can also quickly derail your message.
The solution? A pre-recorded voice over. It’s engaging, lets you fine-tune every detail, avoids poor sound or distractions, and helps deliver a polished performance that flows with your slides. Plus, it adds a personal, professional touch that static text simply can’t match.
Continue reading to learn how to add voice over on Google Slides and engage your audience from start to finish! As bonus, we’ll also introduce you to ClickUp to optimize your presentation workflows.
How to Add Voice Over to Google Slides
Summarize this article for me please⏰ 60-Second Summary
- Pre-recording your voice over ensures better control over timing, avoids distractions, and provides a polished, professional touch to your Google Slides
- To add a professional voice over to your presentation, plan your script to stay concise and on point, and use a voice recording tool
- Upload your audio files to Google Drive, then easily insert them into your slides
- Customize your audio settings in Google Slides to sync the voice over with transitions, adjust volume levels, and choose whether it plays automatically or on-click
- Use screen recording software to combine your narration with visuals, then insert the videos into your slides for a more dynamic presentation
- Google Slides has limitations, like no built-in audio recording and limited audio editing options
- Use an everything app like ClickUp to organize your script, manage visuals, and gather team feedback with seamless collaboration throughout the presentation process
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Add Voice Over to Google Slides?
Text and visuals are great, but they only go so far in building engagement. In fact, Google Slides offers a great range of free templates to help you create polished presentations. But a voice over adds human touch, explaining your ideas more intimately. It adds personality, makes complex ideas easier to follow, and gives your presentation a professional edge.
Adding voice over to Google Slide helps:
- 🎙️ Clarify complex concepts with verbal explanations
- ⏳ Save time by avoiding repetitive live narrations
- 🔊 Enhance accessibility for viewers who prefer audio guidance
💡 Pro Tip: When designing a professional voice over slide presentation, focus on three essentials: clear slide design, concise content, and top-notch audio quality. You can also use AI tools for presentations to brainstorm ideas or create a presentation outline. They save time and help you refine your content before adding a voice over on Google Slides.
Depending on your style and needs, you can pre-record your audio narration or combine it with video. Let’s break it down into two simple methods!
Method 1: Add a pre-recorded audio file
Record your voice over separately and add it to an existing slide deck with the following steps:
Step 1: Prepare your script
Before hitting the record button, take some time to plan what you’ll say.
- Write a concise script or outline to stay focused and cover all key points
- Avoid jargon. Use simple, straightforward language to make your message accessible
- Add a personal story or relatable anecdote to connect with your audience
Step 2: Record your voice over
Google Slides requires separate audio files for each slide, so plan your recordings accordingly.
- Use screen recording apps, audio editing software (like Audacity or GarageBand), an AI voice recorder, or even your phone’s audio recorder
- Don’t aim for perfection right away! Do a few practice takes to fine-tune your tone, pacing, and clarity before the final recording
💡 Pro Tip: Record in a quiet space to minimize background noise and interruptions.
Step 3: Save your recording
After recording, take a moment to organize your files. Name each file based on the slide it corresponds to, like Slide 1 Intro or Slide 3 Key Points. This simple step will save you a lot of time when inserting audio into your presentation.
Save files in a format supported by Google Slides, such as MP3 or WAV. If your tool doesn’t support these formats, use a free online file converter to convert them.
Step 4: Upload the file to Google Drive
- Open Google Drive and click the New button in the top left corner
- Select File Upload to upload individual audio files, or choose Folder Upload if you’ve grouped all your files into a single folder
- Once uploaded, the files will be stored in your Drive and ready to use in Google Slides
💡 Pro Tip: Simply drag and drop your audio file(s) directly into Google Drive. Google will automatically upload and save them in your chosen location.
Step 5: Insert audio files into your slide
- Open your Google Slides presentation and navigate to the slide where you want the voice over
- Click Insert in the top menu, then select Audio
- A list of audio files from your Google Drive will appear. Choose the correct file for the slide and click Insert
Step 6: Customize playback settings
A speaker icon appears on the slide, along with a mini-player to preview the audio. You can move the icon around to ensure it doesn’t distract from the content.
After inserting the audio, you can adjust the playback settings to fit your presentation:
- Sync the audio: Ensure the voice over matches your slide transitions by setting the start and stop times appropriately
- Playback options: Choose whether the audio plays automatically when the slide appears or requires a click to start
- Volume adjustment: Set the volume to ensure it’s clear without overpowering the rest of the presentation
- Enable looping (optional): This is useful for background music or repeating audio
- Hide the speaker icon: If you want a cleaner look during the presentation, you can hide the speaker icon by selecting the “Hide icon when presenting” option in the settings
💡 Pro Tip: Use the playback preview to test your settings and make final adjustments before presenting.
Method 2: Screen recording with audio
Are you looking to turn your slides into a seamless video presentation? This method is perfect for creating a polished video file that combines striking visuals and persuasive audio narration, which can be shared with larger audiences or uploaded online.
Step 1: Record your presentation
Use your computer or a third-party screen recording tool to start recording your slideshow while narrating. Start your presentation in full-screen mode, then hit record. As you move through the slides, explain your points clearly, keeping a steady pace.
Step 2: Add videos to slides
Insert each recorded video onto the corresponding slide in your presentation.
- Ensure the videos are high-quality and properly synced with your slide content for a professional look
- Use playback settings to control how and when the videos appear during your presentation
If you prefer to add individual video clips to specific slides, break your recording into smaller clips for each section of your presentation
📖 Read More: How to Video Record Yourself Presenting a PowerPoint
Summarize this article for me pleaseLimitations of Adding Voice Over to Google Slides
It’s not always smooth sailing when it comes to syncing your voice over with the slides. If you have a long voice over or multiple audio clips, you’ll need to manually adjust the timing, which can take some extra time and patience.
And that’s only one of the challenges. There are a few more limitations to consider so you can better plan your voice over recording process.
No direct audio recording
Imagine you’re preparing a webinar presentation. You record your voice over using an external tool but then realize you need to re-record a small section. Since Google Slides doesn’t have built-in functionality for editing, you’ll have to use an external recording tool, make the change, and re-upload the file.
File size limit
Google Slides limits audio files to 100 MB. High-quality audio or long narrations can easily exceed this limit. You will have to compress the audio, and too much compression could affect the sound quality.
Let’s say you want to create informative training modules with 20+ slides and a detailed voice over. If each slide has a long explanation, compressing the audio might make it sound muffled or distorted.
Limited audio editing options
Once your audio is uploaded to Google Slides, you can only edit it minimally. Google Slides only allows for basic audio formatting, such as autoplay or volume. If you need to trim, fine-tune, or make any other changes to the audio, you’ll have to use a separate tool before uploading the file.
Captions aren’t always spot-on
Google Slides offers captions for your voice over, but they may not always be completely accurate. Factors like your accent, tone, and clarity can affect how well the captions match what you say. If you are presenting to an international team, the captions may misinterpret your words leading to confusion. This is particularly problematic for technical or industry-specific terms.
No built-in screen recording
Google Slides doesn’t offer a feature to record your voice over and slides together in real time. Instead, you’ll need to use a third-party screen recorder to capture your presentation and then upload the video to Google Slides separately. This is doable but slightly more complex.
Summarize this article for me pleaseCreate Engaging Presentations with Voice Over Using ClickUp
Let’s be honest—starting a presentation from scratch, especially one with a voice over, can be a daunting task.
Turning your ideas into a polished and cohesive presentation can feel overwhelming, but with the right presentation tools, it becomes much simpler.
That’s where ClickUp comes in as the everything app for work. It brings your tasks, ideas, documents, and even chats together onto one powerful AI-enabled platform.
Instead of staring at a blank slide, you can start brainstorming with ClickUp Whiteboards, turning scattered thoughts into a structured story. Use ClickUp Docs to draft your script alongside your slides, keeping everything organized in one workspace.
Need to collaborate? Assign tasks, leave comments, and track progress in real time—so nothing falls through the cracks. And if your presentation has a voice over, ClickUp’s built-in recording tools can help.
Let’s look at how to script, record, and collaborate with your team on your presentation using ClickUp.
1. Write your script in ClickUp Docs
Every great presentation begins with a compelling story.
Imagine you’re preparing a sales pitch for a new product.
Using ClickUp Docs allows you to easily draft your pitch script and collaborate with your marketing and sales teams. You can even link your tasks to Docs and assign action items like “Find supporting stats for Slide 4” or “Simplify this technical term for Slide 2” to relevant teammates.
Everyone can jump in, leave comments, and make changes in real time, so no one’s left in the dark about what’s happening.
Need some help shaping your ideas? Use ClickUp Brain to generate content, polish your tone, or even reword sections of your script to sound more engaging.
📌 Bonus: Check out this video to learn more about how ClickUp Brain can supercharge your workflow and help you generate ideas effortlessly!
2. Plan your visuals
Once your script is polished, the next step is connecting ideas with visuals. You can connect your Docs with ClickUp Whiteboards to sketch out your slide ideas and pair them with your narration.
Let’s say you want to create a project roadmap presentation for stakeholders. Use a whiteboard to map out each slide with clear visuals like timelines, workflows, and key milestones.
Sketch out your ideas with sticky notes, link them with connectors, create custom images with AI, and visually structure your slides for clarity. Let your team weigh in with suggestions. For example, marketing can improve messaging, while sales adds solutions for client pain points.
Do you prefer a little more structure?
ClickUp Whiteboard Templates are a great way to start. They come with pre-built layouts for different types of presentations, pitches, roadmaps, or training decks. Tweak them to fit your needs, so you need not waste time setting everything up from scratch.
If you have a specific idea you want to connect to a task, embed live cards from ClickUp Docs or tasks directly onto your Whiteboard.
📮ClickUp Insight: 92% of workers use inconsistent methods to track action items, which results in missed decisions and delayed execution. Whether you’re sending follow-up notes or using spreadsheets, the process is often scattered and inefficient.
ClickUp’s Task Management Solution ensures seamless conversion of conversations into tasks—so your team can act fast and stay aligned.
📖 Read More: How to Create Whiteboard Animation Videos
3. Organize your slides
Let’s say you’re preparing a training deck for new hires. You should sequence your slides in the right order to minimize confusion.
Organizing your slides becomes a breeze with the ClickUp Presentation Template.
Use this template to:
- Assign themes to slides: Break down your presentation into slides like ‘Company Overview,’ ‘Tools Overview,’ and ‘Compliance Policies’
- Visually arrange slides: Rearrange slides by dragging and dropping them for better flow with just a few clicks
- Track progress: With Custom Statuses like ‘In Progress,’ ‘Ready for Review,’ and ‘Approved,’ you’ll always know which stage your presentation is in
- Collaborate in real time: Assign team members to finalize visuals, add voice overs, or collect feedback on specific slides. You can add notes for each slide to remember key points and use Custom Statuses to track progress. The comment feature allows you to gather feedback within the same space.
🧠 Did you know? Adding videos to presentations increases the average reading time by 37%.
4. Enhance engagement with ClickUp Clips
While ClickUp doesn’t record voice overs directly, it allows you to record, send, and transcribe voice clips, which are stored in your workspace indefinitely unless manually deleted.
To record voice clips in task comments, navigate to the task where you want to leave a voice note, and click the microphone icon in the comment section to start recording. On the mobile app, you can access the Activity tab in the upper-right corner of a task, tap ‘Post an update,’ and then tap the microphone icon in the comment editor to begin recording.
Once you record a voice message and send it, ClickUp also provides an option to show a transcription of your voice message.
📖 Read More: Top Transcription Software Solutions
You can also directly record yourself giving a presentation with voice over using ClickUp Clips. Clips let you capture your screen in real time, with or without your webcam and audio. ClickUp Clips transcribe your screen recordings, so teammates can easily search and review specific parts of your presentation.
💡Pro Tip: Another way you can use Clips to enhance your presentation? Suppose you’re creating a product demo or tutorial video. Record a screen capture explaining how each feature works. Share it with your team for feedback, and let them comment directly on specific timestamps. This ensures the final voice over matches your script perfectly.
Summarize this article for me pleaseMake Your Presentations Pop Using ClickUp
Recording high-quality voice overs for your Google Slides doesn’t have to be complicated or costly. You’re all set! Start with the basics. Find a process that works best for you, gather the right tools, and get comfortable with each step.
If you want to nail everything in your presentation—scripting, slides, voice overs, and delivery—try ClickUp. From Docs and Whiteboards that let you create the best presentation to Clips for seamless screen and voice recording, you can do it all with ClickUp. Ditch the hassle of scattered workflows.
Sign up for ClickUp and see how it increases your productivity manifold!
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
