Tesla Toybox in 2026: every feature, and the five that use your own files

Quick answer: Toybox is the touchscreen app that holds Tesla's fun extras: Paint Shop, Boombox, Light Show, Emissions, TRAX, Sketchpad, Romance, Rainbow Road and the seasonal Santa Mode and Halloween Mode. Five of them can use a file you supply: Paint Shop wraps, Paint Shop license plates, Lock Sound, Boombox sounds and custom light shows.

Tesla's own list lives on the Theater, Arcade, and Toybox page of the owner's manual, which notes that features vary by region, build date and configuration. This guide is current as of update 2026.38.3, which added Halloween Mode on October 6, 2026.

Where is Toybox on a Tesla?

1. Park the car. The manual says "Play in the Toybox while parked," and most features only run in Park.
2. Tap the App Launcher at the bottom of the touchscreen.
3. Tap Toybox, then pick a feature. Many also answer to voice commands.

Two neighbors aren't in Toybox: Theater streams video while you're parked, and Arcade runs games you play with the steering wheel buttons or a controller. Caraoke lives in the media player instead, and the 2026.26 Summer Update gave it live scoring on AMD Ryzen cars, per Not a Tesla App.

What's in Toybox in 2026?

Every feature in Tesla's manual, plus the two seasonal modes. The third column is the one most lists skip.

Which Toybox features use your own files?

Five of them, and each wants a folder or file name spelled exactly.

1. Paint Shop wraps

Paint Shop changes how your car looks on its own screens, and its Wraps tab lays a custom PNG over the 3D model. It never touches the real paint. Tesla's official wrap guide sets the rules:

• File: a PNG from 512x512 to 1024x1024 pixels. Use your model's template size: 1024x1024 for Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X, 1024x768 for the Cybertruck.
• Size and name: under 1 MB, named with letters, numbers, spaces, underscores and dashes, up to 30 characters.
• How many: up to 10 from the Tesla app plus 10 from a USB drive.
• From your phone: Creations > Wrap > Upload (you need Tesla app 4.59.1 or newer and car software 2026.26 or newer). Steps: upload a wrap from the Tesla app.
• From USB: a Wraps folder at the top of an exFAT, FAT32, ext3 or ext4 drive, never NTFS. Steps: export your wrap to USB.
• Apply it: Toybox > Paint Shop > Wraps.

Design one free in the FrunkLab studio, which exports at the right size every time, or grab a ready-made design from the free wrap collection. The wrap checker tells you if a file you already have will pass. Everything else Paint Shop does is in our full Paint Shop guide.

2. Paint Shop license plates

Tesla's manual confirms Paint Shop can change the license plate but doesn't publish file specs, so these come from Not a Tesla App's how-to from August 8, 2026, not from Tesla:

• A folder named LicensePlate on the USB drive.
• PNG files under 500 KB, about 400x200 or 420x200 pixels for North American plates and 420x100 for European ones.
• Up to 10 plates stored, picked in Toybox > Paint Shop, then Customize and the License Plate tab.

Plates load by USB only. The Tesla app sends wraps, not plates.

3. Lock Sound

Lock Sound plays your sound every time the car locks. It lives inside Boombox and reads one file:

1. Save a WAV under 5 seconds and under 1 MB named LockChime.wav.
2. Copy it to the top level of a USB drive, not inside any folder. Format the drive exFAT, FAT32, ext3 or ext4 (not NTFS).
3. Plug the drive into a front data port. On many cars built since late 2021 the console ports only charge, so use the glovebox port.
4. In the car, open Toybox > Boombox, turn on Lock Sound and choose USB.

Lock Sound plays through the external Pedestrian Warning System speaker, which most Teslas built since late 2019 have. If Boombox shows up in Toybox, your car has it.

Need a sound? The lock sound library has nearly 400 free sounds that download as Tesla-ready LockChime.wav files, free on every plan. The AI lock chime generator makes one from a sentence, and the LockChime.wav converter trims your own audio to fit. Fixes for a chime that won't play are in how to change your Tesla lock chime.

4. Boombox sounds

Boombox plays sounds out loud through the same external speaker, in Park only. Tesla's manual lists current media, Megaphone for your voice, and the horn button, which plays the first five seconds of a sound from your drive. To add your own:

1. Format a USB drive exFAT, MS-DOS FAT, ext3 or ext4.
2. Create a folder named Boombox. Tesla says the drive can hold only that one folder, so it can't double as your Dashcam drive.
3. Add .wav or .mp3 files. The car offers only the first five, alphabetically.
4. Plug it into a front USB port and pick a sound from the Boombox dropdown.

Naming tricks and fixes are in our Tesla Boombox guide.

5. Light Show

Light Show runs a show of the car's lights, closures and music, scheduled from the touchscreen or the Tesla app. Custom shows follow Tesla's own light show guide on GitHub, built in the free xLights sequencing app:

• A LightShow folder at the top level of the drive.
• A .fseq show file plus a .wav or .mp3 with the same name. Tesla recommends WAV at 44.1 kHz so the music stays in sync.
• Several shows per drive on 2023.44.25 or newer, each up to 4 hours.
• No top-level TeslaCam folder and no map or firmware update files on that drive.

Then open Toybox > Light Show, tap Schedule Show and pick your show. If the popup reads "Light Show" instead of "Custom Light Show," the car didn't accept the drive.

What are Halloween Mode and Santa Mode?

Tesla's two seasonal modes, and both stay in Toybox year round.

Halloween Mode arrived in update 2026.38.3 on October 6, 2026, with two toggles, per Not a Tesla App's walkthrough. Ghost Costume drapes a glowing sheet over the on-screen car. Trick or Treat plays spooky sounds and flickers the lights when visitors walk up, and it turns off Sentry Mode, the alarm and walk-away lock while it's on. The update also adds four Halloween wraps for Paint Shop and a Halloween sound in Toybox > Boombox > Lock Sound, and your own wraps and chimes keep working next to Tesla's. The full rundown is in our Halloween Mode news post, and there are more Model Y Halloween wraps ready to download.

Santa Mode turns the on-screen car into a sleigh pulled by reindeer and swaps the turn signal click for sleigh bells, and cars with the external speaker get a Spread Cheer toggle that plays holiday music outside, per Not a Tesla App. For a matching look, see our Tesla Christmas wrap ideas.

What usually goes wrong with Toybox files?

The car rarely shows an error. It just ignores the file. The usual suspects:

• NTFS or the wrong port. Use exFAT, FAT32, ext3 or ext4, and the glovebox port on cars whose console ports only charge.
• A folder name off by one letter. Wraps, LicensePlate, Boombox and LightShow need exact spelling, and LockChime.wav sits at the top level.
• One drive for everything. A Boombox drive holds only its folder, and a Light Show drive can't carry a top-level TeslaCam folder. A small drive per job is the safe setup.
• No external speaker. No Boombox in Toybox means Lock Sound won't work either.

If a wrap won't appear, try our Paint Shop troubleshooting guide.

Frequently asked questions

What is Toybox on a Tesla? The touchscreen app that holds Tesla's fun features, including Paint Shop, Boombox, Light Show, Emissions, TRAX, Sketchpad, Romance, Rainbow Road and the seasonal Santa Mode and Halloween Mode. Most run only in Park.

Where is Toybox? Tap the App Launcher at the bottom of the touchscreen, then tap Toybox. Many of its features also open by voice command.

Which Toybox features use a USB drive? Five: Paint Shop wraps (a Wraps folder), license plates (a LicensePlate folder), Lock Sound (LockChime.wav at the top level, then Toybox > Boombox > Lock Sound > USB), Boombox (a Boombox folder) and Light Show (a LightShow folder). Wraps can also come from the Tesla app through Creations > Wrap > Upload.

Is Halloween Mode in Toybox? Yes. Since update 2026.38.3 on October 6, 2026, Halloween Mode sits in Toybox with two toggles, Ghost Costume and Trick or Treat, and works any time of year. It also adds four Halloween wraps to Paint Shop and a Halloween lock sound.

Ready to give Paint Shop something nobody else has? Design your own wrap in the studio, free.