Customize your Tesla's sounds

Your K3Y doubles as the USB drive Tesla reads custom audio from. With a single Boombox folder on your K3Y, you can set custom sounds for the external speaker, a custom horn sound, and a custom lock chime — no extra flash drive needed.

How it works

Tesla reads custom audio from a folder named exactly Boombox in the root of a USB drive. Because your K3Y is already in the front USB port, it can be that drive — your dashcam footage stays untouched in its own folder. Everything below lives inside that one Boombox folder.

Before you start

• A Model 3 or Model Y built after September 1, 2019 — it needs the external pedestrian speaker.
• Tesla software 2020.48.26 or later.
• Your K3Y formatted as exFAT or FAT32 — NTFS isn't supported.
• A folder named exactly Boombox in the root of the drive.

1. Custom Boombox sounds (external speaker)

These are the clips that play out loud through your car's external speaker.

1. Add your clips to the Boombox folder

   Drop up to 5 audio clips (.wav or .mp3, each under 1 MB) into the Boombox folder. Avoid spaces in file names, and remember Tesla lists the first five alphabetically — so name them to control the order.

2. Pick a sound on the touchscreen

   Open the apps drawer, tap Toybox, then Boombox, and choose a clip from the list to play through the external speaker.

2. Custom horn sound

You can replace your car's horn with one of your sounds.

• In Toybox › Boombox, turn on the custom horn and choose a sound from the list — a Tesla preset, or one of your own clips from the Boombox folder.
• When you press the horn, the car plays the first few seconds of that sound through the external speaker instead of the standard beep.
• This reuses the same clips already in your Boombox folder — there's no separate file to add.

3. Custom lock sound

Replace the chime your Tesla makes when it locks.

• Add a file named exactly LockChime.wav (case-sensitive) inside the Boombox folder.
• Use a WAV file: 44.1 kHz, 16-bit, mono or stereo, 1–5 seconds, under 1 MB.
• On the touchscreen, go to Toybox › Boombox › Lock Sound and switch it from Default to USB.
• Adjust its volume under Controls › Locks — it's separate from your media volume.

Good to know

• Name things exactly. The folder must be Boombox, and the lock file must be LockChime.wav, or the car won't find them.
• Keep files small. Each file must be under 1 MB. Trimming to a couple of seconds and mixing down to mono helps you stay under the limit.
• Only the first five. Tesla lists five Boombox clips alphabetically — name them to control the order.
• Dashcam keeps working. These sounds live in the Boombox folder, separate from your TeslaCam recordings.

Where to find sounds

Don't have a clip yet? These libraries offer free, royalty-free sounds you can download and use:

Look for something short, and download it as a .wav or .mp3 under 1 MB — then drop it into the Boombox folder on your K3Y.