How to change your Tesla lock chime

Changing your Tesla's lock chime means putting a single audio file named LockChime.wav at the root of a USB drive, plugging it into the car, and enabling it under Controls > Locks. The car then plays your sound instead of the stock horn chirp every time you lock it. The whole process takes about five minutes and doesn't require any software mods, subscriptions, or third-party hardware. This guide walks through the exact requirements, because the feature fails silently when any of them is off.

What are the file requirements?

Tesla is strict here, and there's no error message when you get it wrong. The car just ignores the file.

• Format: WAV. Not MP3, not M4A, not a renamed MP3.
• Length: 5 seconds maximum.
• Size: 1MB maximum.
• Filename: exactly LockChime.wav, and it's case-sensitive. lockchime.wav and LockChime.WAV don't work.
• Location: the root of the USB drive, not inside any folder.

The USB drive itself needs to be formatted as exFAT or FAT32 (ext3 and ext4 also work; NTFS does not). If the same drive records dashcam footage, that's fine, the lock chime rides along without conflict.

Where do I get a chime?

Three routes:

1. Download a ready-made one. FrunkLab's lock sounds library has 111+ Tesla-themed chimes, already in the right format. Tap download, rename to LockChime.wav if needed, done. Sounds are tagged, so if your wrap has a theme, there's probably a chime to match. Downloads are free on every tier (pricing only affects AI generations and saved designs).
2. Trim your own audio. Any audio editor (Audacity is free) can cut a clip to 5 seconds and export WAV. Keep an eye on the export size: uncompressed WAV at high sample rates can pass 1MB fast. 44.1kHz mono usually lands comfortably under the cap.
3. Record something. Your dog, your kid, a synth stab. If it's under 5 seconds as a WAV, the car will play it.

How do I keep a WAV under 5 seconds and 1MB?

WAV size is arithmetic: sample rate times bit depth times channels times seconds. A 16-bit mono file at 44.1kHz runs about 86KB per second, so even a full 5-second chime lands near 430KB. Stereo doubles that to roughly 860KB, still legal but close to the ceiling. A 24-bit, 96kHz stereo export blows past 1MB in under 2 seconds, which is how a technically correct WAV still gets ignored by the car.

When in doubt, export 16-bit, 44.1kHz, mono. The car's small external speaker won't reward anything fancier, and mono halves your file size for free. Trim leading and trailing silence too: silence spends your 5-second budget without doing anything, and a chime that fires the instant you lock feels noticeably better than one with a half-second of dead air first.

What makes a lock chime actually sound good?

Short beats clever. The chimes people keep are 1 to 2 seconds: a note, a chirp, a word, a sting. Five full seconds of audio playing in a quiet parking garage gets old by the third day, and you'll be hearing this sound thousands of times.

Two production notes. First, the car plays the chime at a fixed volume through the external speaker, with no volume control in the UI, so set the level in the file itself: normalize a quiet clip, and pull down a hot one before it distorts. Second, end clean. A clip that cuts off mid-note sounds broken every single time, while a short fade-out of even a tenth of a second reads as intentional.

A quick reality test before the USB trip: play the candidate out loud from your phone, outdoors, three times in a row. If it grates by the third play, it'll grate more from the car, because you'll hear it every single time you walk away. The keepers tend to be sounds you barely notice by week two but would miss if they vanished.

What are the exact steps?

1. Format a USB drive as exFAT or FAT32 (or reuse your dashcam drive).
2. Copy your chime to the drive and make sure it's named LockChime.wav, sitting at the root.
3. Plug the drive into a USB port in the car. On most models the glovebox port works and keeps the drive out of sight.
4. On the touchscreen, open Controls > Locks and enable the custom lock sound option.
5. Get out, close the doors, and lock the car. You should hear your chime.

If you later want the stock sound back, either disable the option in Controls > Locks or pull the drive.

Why isn't my lock chime working?

Run down this list; one of these is almost always it.

• Wrong name. Case-sensitivity catches most people. It must be LockChime.wav exactly.
• File inside a folder. The root means the top level of the drive. A LockChime folder containing the file doesn't work.
• MP3 in disguise. Renaming chime.mp3 to LockChime.wav doesn't convert it. Re-export as WAV from an audio editor.
• Over the limits. Longer than 5 seconds or bigger than 1MB and the car skips it without complaint.
• NTFS drive. Windows formats large drives as NTFS by default. Reformat as exFAT.
• Setting not enabled. The file alone does nothing until you flip the option under Controls > Locks with the drive plugged in.
• Distorted playback. If the chime plays but sounds crunchy, the file is probably clipping. Lower the gain a few decibels in your editor and re-export; the external speaker is small and unforgiving.

Can I use a clip from a song?

For your own car, you can load any audio you have a copy of: trim it under 5 seconds, export it as WAV, and the car will play it. Movie one-liners, game sound effects, and song hooks are all popular choices, and a 2-second hook usually works better than trying to cram in a whole phrase.

Two caveats. Community libraries can't host copyrighted clips, so anything you share publicly needs to be original or licensed. And heavily compressed source audio (a low-bitrate rip, a voice memo of a speaker) tends to sound thin outdoors; start from the cleanest copy you can find.

Can my lock chime match my wrap?

That's the fun part. A digital wrap and a lock chime ride the same USB drive: the wrap PNG goes in a Wraps folder, the chime sits at the root, and neither interferes with the other. Design a theme in the studio (the first-wrap tutorial gets you to a finished design in minutes), pick a chime from the library that matches it, and load both in one trip to the car. If you're saving a design on FrunkLab, you can attach a sound to it directly so the pair stays together. The USB export walkthrough covers the wrap half of that trip, and how to get a custom Tesla wrap covers the whole route from blank template to themed car.

Frequently asked questions

Does a custom lock chime void the warranty? No. It's an official Tesla feature, present in the software since the 2022 holiday update. You're using the car as designed.

Do all Teslas support it? All current Model 3, Model Y, Model S, Model X, and Cybertruck builds with a recent software version support custom lock chimes. If Controls > Locks shows no custom sound option, update the car's software.

Can I have more than one chime? One at a time. The car reads a single LockChime.wav. Keep a folder of favorites on your computer and swap the active one whenever you want.

Is this the same as Boombox? No. Boombox plays sounds on demand through the external speaker (those live in a Boombox folder on the drive). The lock chime is specifically the sound the car makes when you lock it.

Can I make the chime quieter or louder from the car? No. Playback volume is fixed, so loudness is set in the file itself. Normalize a quiet clip upward or reduce the gain on a loud one in your audio editor, then re-export and swap the file.

Does the USB drive need to stay plugged in? Yes. The car plays the chime from the drive, so removing it reverts you to the stock sound until you plug it back in. This is why the glovebox port is popular: the drive stays connected and invisible.

Will my chime survive software updates? Yes. Updates don't touch files on your USB drive. If the custom sound ever stops after an update, check that the drive is still seated and the option is still enabled under Controls > Locks; re-enabling takes seconds.

Browse the lock sounds library and give your Tesla a voice to go with its wrap.