← OpenMYO

Help

OpenMYO is free for making Yoto Make Your Own cards. Use it in your browser, or install the Mac app to add video links and Spotify playlists. Can’t find your answer here? Write to team@openmyo.com.

Browser or Mac app?

OpenMYO in your browser does nearly everything: audio files, podcasts, recording, timers, titles with free AI help, pictures, covers and sync. It works on computers and phones, with nothing to install.

The Mac app adds video links and Spotify playlists. These download audio on your own Mac, never on our servers, so they can’t run in a browser. Some podcast hosts also block downloads in a browser: there, those episodes stream instead, and the Mac app saves them for offline. Drafts don’t move between the two, but cards you sync to Yoto open in both.

Install OpenMYO

You need a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer) and macOS 12 or later.

  1. Download OpenMYO and open OpenMYO.dmg.
  2. Drag OpenMYO into Applications.
  3. Open OpenMYO from Applications.

“OpenMYO can’t be opened” or “Apple could not verify…”

This message appears the first time, because OpenMYO is a small independent app that isn’t notarized by Apple yet. To open it:

  1. Click Done (or Cancel). Don’t move it to the Bin.
  2. Open System Settings and choose Privacy & Security.
  3. Scroll down to the message “OpenMYO was blocked…” and click Open Anyway.
  4. Enter your password or use Touch ID, then click Open.

You do this only once. On older versions of macOS, you can instead right-click OpenMYO in Applications and choose Open.

Check your download (optional)

Each release lists the SHA-256 checksum of OpenMYO.dmg on its release page. The current one is 84ae362bf23b9d39951de6ce1faaebc9fdc64a3c962b42900239cc8f68c34fe6. To compare, open Terminal and run shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/OpenMYO.dmg.

“OpenMYO is damaged and can’t be opened”

The download didn’t finish. Delete OpenMYO.dmg, download it again, and try once more.

It doesn’t start on my Mac

OpenMYO doesn’t run on Macs with Intel processors yet. To check yours, open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac: Apple silicon shows “Chip: Apple M1” (or M2, M3 and so on).

Connect your Yoto (and the “not verified” warning)

  1. Click Connect your Yoto, then Continue to Yoto.
  2. Sign in on Yoto’s own page. OpenMYO never sees your password.
  3. Yoto says OpenMYO isn’t verified yet, and shows our contact email. Click Accept. This is normal: Yoto verifies apps only after they have been in use for a while.

You’re back in OpenMYO with your cards. You can disconnect at any time in Settings.

Want to look around first? Choose Try with pretend cards. Nothing is sent to Yoto.

Add audio

The box at the top of Your cards is the quickest way to start. You can:

Press / or ⌘K to jump to the box from anywhere. In the File menu, Make a Card (⌘N) goes to the box and Add Audio Files (⌘O) opens a file picker. Inside a card, the same box adds tracks to that card.

OpenMYO cleans up the titles, puts the tracks in order and picks a picture for each one. To change several at once, use Tidy: it shows every change before it makes it. Every change can be undone with ⌘Z.

Fix titles

OpenMYO cleans up titles by itself: track numbers, underscores and “(Official Audio)” go, and the tracks go in order. For more:

Every change can be undone with ⌘Z.

Record a message

Click Record to record on your Mac. Press the red button, press it again to stop, and listen back. Give it a title, then click Add to card.

Add audio from a video link

Paste a YouTube video or playlist link into the box, or click YouTube inside a card. Use this for your own videos, family recordings, and content you have permission to use.

  1. Paste the link and press Return (or click Load).
  2. Untick anything you don’t want, then click Download. You can close the window while it works: the progress shows at the top of OpenMYO.
  3. Click Add tracks to card.

A long video with chapters, such as a collection of stories, becomes one track per chapter. Short intros of a few seconds join the next track.

It says the video can’t be read

Only add audio you have the right to use. You are responsible for what goes on your cards.

Split a long recording

One long file holding several stories or songs? Open the track’s ⋯ menu and choose Split at timestamps…. Paste a list of times and titles, one per line:

0:00 The first story
12:30 The second story

You can paste a whole video description: lines without a time are skipped. OpenMYO shows the tracks before it splits. Split into equal parts is for tracks longer than Yoto’s 60-minute limit.

Spotify playlists (advanced)

OpenMYO can turn Spotify playlists you made into cards. It reads the song list from Spotify and finds each song on YouTube.

You need Spotify Premium. Spotify lets only Premium accounts do this. Only playlists you made yourself (or collaborate on) work: that’s also Spotify’s rule.

Set it up once, in about 3 minutes. In OpenMYO, open Settings → Spotify playlists and follow the steps there:

  1. Open Spotify for Developers and log in with your Spotify account.
  2. Fill in the form: app name OpenMYO, description Yoto cards, redirect URI http://127.0.0.1:8888/callback (click Add). Tick Web API and the terms box, then click Save.
  3. Copy the Client ID into OpenMYO and click Connect Spotify.
  4. Click Agree on the Spotify page that opens.

Then paste a Spotify playlist link into the box on Your cards. Check any song marked Check match: you can pick a different YouTube version from its list.

“Spotify only shares playlists you made yourself”

In Spotify, open the playlist, select all songs (⌘A), choose Add to playlist → New playlist, and paste the new playlist’s link. Do the same for an album: add it to a playlist of your own.

“Spotify needs Premium on the account that owns your Spotify app”

Sign in with the Spotify account you used to create the app, and check that it has Premium. After upgrading, it can take a few hours to start working.

Sync and put it on a card

  1. Check Next steps on the right of the card (on a small window, above the tracks). Fix anything marked, or click Fix all.
  2. Click Sync to Yoto. You can work on other cards while it uploads.
  3. In the Yoto app, go to Library → Playlists and open the new playlist.
  4. Tap Link to a MYO Card. Hold a blank Make Your Own card to the top of your phone, or pick your player and put the card in it. The player shows a red record icon, then a green tick.
  5. Take the card out and put it back in. It plays.
  6. On a 4th-generation player, you can instead send the playlist to your green button playlists.

You link a card only once. When you sync changes later, the linked card updates by itself. OpenMYO shows these steps after a new card’s first sync; on a synced card, click Put it on a card to see them again.

Yoto allows up to 100 tracks per card, each up to 60 minutes and 100 MB. OpenMYO checks this for you.

“OpenMYO opened on a backup address”

OpenMYO runs a small private server on your Mac at a fixed address. If another program is using that address, OpenMYO uses a backup one instead. Your drafts and Yoto sign-in are saved with the usual address, so they don’t show on the backup one. Nothing is lost: quit OpenMYO, close the other program (or restart your Mac), and open OpenMYO again.

Where your drafts are

Everything stays on your Mac until you sync. There is no OpenMYO account, so we can’t see or restore your drafts. To remove them, use Settings → Delete local data. Cards already on Yoto stay in your Yoto library. More in Privacy and terms.

Report a problem

In OpenMYO, open Settings → Help → Report a problem. It opens an email with your Mac and app details filled in, which you can read and edit before sending. Or write to team@openmyo.com. To report content that shouldn’t be there, use the same address.

OpenMYO is independent and is not made, endorsed or supported by Yoto.