Want to make an iPhone ringtone with your own music? Just follow the step-by-step instructions below. Make sure to start out with songs that are mp3s or are otherwise DRM-free. *Updated for iTunes 11*
How to Make an iPhone Ringtone in iTunes:
1. Open iTunes.
2. Open Preferences in the iTunes menu at the top (it may be under Edit for Windows users):
3. Select the General tab:
4. Select Import Settings:
5. Click on the dropdown list after Importing Using:
6. Select AAC Encoder (it may already be the default):
7. Select OK to go back to the Preferences, then select OK again.
8. Select Music in the left iTunes sidebar and find a song you want to make into a ringtone:
9. You’ll need to find a 40 second or less section of the song to turn into a ringtone. Note (or write down) the starting and stopping point of the section of the song. You can see the time of the song in the play window at the top of iTunes:
10. Right click on the song, and select Get Info:
11. Select the Options tab at the top:
12. Enter the start and stop time of the clip in the corresponding boxes and make sure the checkboxes are checked when you are finished:
13. Click OK in the bottom right.
14. In the iTunes menu at the top, click Advanced, then Create AAC Version from the drop-down menu (in iTunes 11, it’s File –> Create New Version –> Create AAC Version):
15. You should see a second version of the song appear in iTunes, only with the shorter play time. Click to play to make sure it sounds how you’ll want the ringtone to sound.
16. We aren’t quite finished yet! Now we have to change the file format so that it will appear as a ringtone in iTunes.
17. Navigate to the folder where the new clip is stored on your computer (it will be in the same folder as the original version of the song). To find it in Windows, right-click the clip in iTunes, then choose Show in Explorer. For Mac, right-click and select Show In Finder.
18. Copy the song (press Control and C for Windows, Command and C for Mac), and paste the song in the same folder (Control and V or Command and V) so that a third version appears.
19. Now, change the file extension of the third version from .m4a to .m4r.
Troubleshooting: Don’t see the file extension? Windows 7: click the Start button, Control Panel–>Appearance and Personalization–>Folder Options–>View tab–>and uncheck Hide Extensions for known file types. For Windows XP: in the Explorer window, go to Tools –> Folder Options –> View and uncheck Hide extensions for known file types. For Vista: Organize –> Folder and Search Options and uncheck Hide extension for known file types.
20. Rename the file, if you want (for example, CoolRingtone.m4r). Note: If there are symbols such as underscores or hyphens in the name, you must remove them.
21. Important: In iTunes, delete the first AAC clip you made by right-clicking on the clip and selecting delete (if you don’t do this, iTunes might not accept the new ringtone):
22. Go back to the folder with the new ringtone file (.m4r file). Drag and drop the file into iTunes. Or import it by opening iTunes, select File, and select: Windows XP/Vista: Add File to Library, Mac: Add to Library.
23. Now we need to sync the ringtone to your iPhone. Connect the iPhone to the computer.
24. Click on your iPhone in the left sidebar in iTunes (Note: for iTunes 11, your iPhone can be found under Devices at the top right):
25. Click on the Tones tab, check the Sync tones checkbox, then check either All tones or Selected tones. If you choose Selected ringtones, make sure your new ringtone is also checked so it will sync:
26. Now click the Apply button in the bottom right (it may also say Sync. Click Sync if it does).
And that’s it. You’ve done it! The ringtone is now on the iPhone. Got to Settings on your iPhone, tap Sounds, and you can change to your new ringtone. If the ringtone doesn’t show up on the iPhone, follow the Troubleshooting steps below, else go to the Clean Up section for one important last step.
Troubleshooting
Did the ringtone not appear on your iPhone? Follow these steps.
1. Click on the Summary tab for your iPhone in iTunes:
2. See if the checkbox labeled Manually manage music and video is checked. If not, check it.
3. Click on Tones in the left sidebar (older versions of iTunes may say Ringtones instead) and find the ringtone:
4. Drag and drop the ringtone onto your iPhone in the left sidebar. The iPhone should begin synching immediately, and the ringtone will appear shortly on your iPhone:
More Troubleshooting
Problem: I don’t see Tones or Ringtones in the iTunes Sidebar.
Go into Preferences–>General, and under Show make sure the Tones checkbox is checked.
Problem: You get a scary message “All existing songs, movies and TV shows on the iPhone will be removed.”
You likely received this message because you’ve never synced your iPhone with iTunes before and therefore don’t have a back-up of your iPhone data. Cancel the current sync. Unplug your iPhone and plug it back in again. Right click on your iPhone in the left sidebar and select Back Up:
Now that iTunes has an image of your current iPhone to work from, right click on it again in the left sidebar and select Sync.
Clean Up
You made the ringtone, but there’s one clean-up task to do. We need to fix the Start/Stop time of the original song. Otherwise, the next time you play the song, it won’t play the whole thing. In iTunes, right click the original song, select Get Info –> Options and reset the Start/Stop time by deleting the numbers and leaving the fields blank. All done!
Thank you sooo much!
Thank you!!! I’m so excited to find this! You’re the best for posting them.
Thank you very much. Great stuff, really. BTW, “Show in Explorer” works on Windows, too ;-)
Awesome! Thanks!
Great.. !! Superb.. !! Your de One my friend.. !! Hugzzz.. got all my songs converted to ringtones.. great stuff.. post more topics if u hv.. wud luv to hear from u.. !! cheerzzz !!
very nice explanation with screen shots. it worked in the first try.
Thanks a lot.
Sounds much more complex than it is. Nice easy way to create ringtones.
Thanks
Yes! Whoo, I did it. Took awhile, the file extension bit threw me but got there in the end – you are very clever.
THANKXXX!!!!! u r awesome!!!
Thanks – however under ITunes 9 and Windows 7 it is not as you say. No separate item is created in IT post create as AAC; the file extension that you mention is not created in the folder containing the MP3; syncing ringtones gives a warning that it will remove all music and movies from the iPhone… which it did. And… no ringtone was available. What a stuff up!
Wow works great!!! For all those who couldn’t get it to work, stop because you are a retard.
thanx bro, it works. EXCEPT that when I go 2 sync it removes all music and movies as well.. how can I get around this?
You rule! Thanks for figuring this out and posting online. Let’s hope App_e doesn’t yank this off the internet to protect their precious store.
is it just me or does this method only let you use one ringtone and when wanting to use another you have to plug your iphone back up to the computer and switch under settings>sounds>ringtone,it shows “CUSTOM” and under that is only one out of ten ringtones that are sown in my itunes any idea please help
Hi,
I found the ringtone in Library-Ringtones but when I clicked on iPhone-Ringtones it wasn’t there, not sure what I did wrong, could you help me on this?
Thanks
Great…its awesome!!!
This works, but a much easier way would be to use the free online ringtone tool from mobilespin.net
You my friend… are a frikin genius! Thanks a mill!
Wow, everyone here seemsBtonthink that this was useful. I have no problem with that. But what I think is that this is far too many steps to go thru just to play a ringtone. Other cheap cellphones Allow u to record your own song or voice or anything and le u use that. Or just use music directly from ur library. My wife has a blackberry and she has almost entire songs playing just when she gets a text MSG. She has about 40 different ringtones for callers, and they each have a seperate text ringtone. C
on apple, get it together man. The phone is hot, but the ringtone capabilities suck major @$$.
Nice! Thanks for posting!!!
Completely amazing. Thank you, a million times, thank you.
Thank you so much! very helpful! thank you for posting!
I love you man!!!!!
works great…thanks
Ka-POW! It worked.
Hi. I’m a PC, and I made it work with just a few minor adjustments. Once I created the m4r file, I simpally did the drag and drop to my ring tone folder on iTunes.
Worked like a charm! Thanks mate!
I have successfully created the first ringtone into my iphone inside a custom dialogue box. After which I replaced with the second ringtone. I believed it can only support one ringtone
When I tried to sync the second ringtone with a third, it can be done. The CUSTOM box is also disappeared.
What exactly happened? Can help
Oh I have done it by shortening filename. Thanks alot
Very nice. You made my girlfriend and I very happy.
I can get upto step 19, but then when i find the songs on file, they dont say .mp3 or anything like that, so i can’t change it to .m4r. Help please!
Actually it only apeared in the list, but after sync , there is nothing inside the sounds in my mobile, please help…….
Awesome!!! The key really is to have a shorter name for the ringtone! Thanks!!!!!
Thank you VERY much!! This worked beautifully. Happy Holidays.
THANKYOU SOO MUCH, your a genious! that was soo easy to follow :)
I got all the way to syncing with the iPhone. It said it was synching the ringtone, but then put up an error message saying it was unable to find the file. 64-bit iTunes 9.0.2.25
Genius. It’s annoying that not only does Apple want you to purchase music from I-tunes but that other unprotected files in the library can’t be used for such purposes. There are other almost identical instructions available elsewhere, but they don’t go into the detail necessary to make it work with some operating systems. This works exactly as advertised. Thanks so much!!
WooHoo! Worked like a charm.
THANK YOU!! Apple makes everything more difficult, but you helped me work around them, thanks
Excellent.. it worked out . Take the print copy of all above screent shots and it will be the fastest way.
I’m having trouble getting more than one ringtone to sync. i tried dragging n dropping the ringtones to a seperate folder as u explained and it wont let me. Can u help me please!?
hey so just like #5 and #37 comments i cant get past having it in ringtones on the left hand column. The ringtone does not appear in Setting>Sounds. PLZ HELP! Other than that youre a genius!
My GOD! Where have you been all my life??? I love you man!!!
Easy as pie!
Also agree….brilliant.
Two observations (I’ve now converted two songs to ringtones — Windows XP and iTunes 9.0.2.25).
1. One of the songs I’m converting has a 3 second gap in the beginning. I set the “Start Time” under Get Info/Options to 0:03.00 and it doesn’t seem to use this value (the ringtone has the same gap).
2. This is related….the 40 second rule *really* does hold true. Because i thought I was starting at 0:03 per above, i made the Stop Time 0:42. the AAC and M4R were created but i couldn’t get it to sync. Well, the ringtone was actually 0:42 and although iTunes saw it as a ringtone (it’s in my Ringtones folder under Library in iTunes), it didn’t see it as something that it could/should sync. As soon as I made the song/ringtone 0:40 seconds, it popped up and sync’d no problem.
Also read all the posts. I now see both ringtones on my iPhone listed under Custom available, for example, when I assign a ringtone to a contact.
To those having trouble, I think if you follow the directions really carefully, should work fine.
Have tried this three ways from Sunday (I know that makes no sense, but I’m FRUSTRATED). I’ve tried and followed these directions exactly and it’s not working. I get it to import into my itunes library, but it won’t allow me to drag/drop into my phone. It won’t sync. Why?
OK…I figured it out. Even tho I set the timing for 6:11(start time) to 6:41 (end time)(30 seconds), for some reason itunes set the length of the created song :57 seconds. When I reset the new :57 second tune to :30 seconds, everything worked great.
Great! It works!!! :)
YEAH! Badass, you’ve covered everything! This is really helpful and really easy. I am using Audacity to create the ringtone, so I don’t have to deal with that start/stop portion you mention in the tutorial.
Thanks :)
For those of you like me who converted the song to a ringtone and it did not show up on your phone……Re-sync the ringtones but un-check the ringtone you made first. Then re-check that ringtone and re-sync. That is what finally worked for me.
This is great but i wanted to see if i could convert a voicemail into a ringtone?
WOW thanks so much! Makes me so happy :DDD
Great work Pal ! Appreciate it (smile)
Thansk for all the tips. Only thing is the ringtone won’t show up on my phone. I have tried syncing it twice. More advice please.
TO GET AROUND THE SYNC ISSUE:
Follow all of the steps, then when you have your phone connected, drag the ringtone (from your library) to the column on the left that lists your phone, making sure to drop it on your phone icon, and NOT the ringtone folder.
Once you follow these steps, the ringtone will appear in your phone under ringtones.
Worked fantastically well…thanks a million… can use the same process for SMS tones and just make the tunes no longer than say 5 secs ??
Problem! Thanks so far…. success with getting it onto the iphone but it sits in music and i can’t find a way to get it to the ringtones of the iphone….. done all above……. HELP, VERY frustrated.
Thanks
What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Bravo! This is super! You came up on my first google search to figure this out and it worked the very first time! And the 2nd time too! Thanks!
can ANYone tell me on this forum what I might have missed – getting ringtones from the music on iphone into the iphone ‘ringtone’ list……. can’t see a way to do it. followed ALL of above instructions but it landed both times into my music folder on the iphone. HELP PLEASE
@Viccles –
Are you sure you changed the file extension to m4r & deleted the original copy? If so, iTunes should automatically add any m4r files to the ringtone folder of your library. Once it’s in there, make sure you drag it to the icon of your device & NOT the ringtone folder of your device.
I hope this helps.
What good instructions. I assume you have a highly paid job as a Technical Writer – this was so clear!
Cheers
You are bad-ass. Simply amazing!
thnxx u rock !!!!!!! :D
i pressed sync and it went on my iphone but then i just can’t find it anywhere in my itunes everything was right too it was in the ringtone section but i just can’t seem to find it in the ringtones section at setting and then sounds then ringtones
hi,
everything went perfect, ringtone also done.
but lost all the data in music and video section…
any suggestions for next time ??
If you don’t want to lose all other data on your phone, don’t click sync, just drag the ringtone from the folder in itunes to the device icon in itunes. This will add the ringtone to the correct folder in your phone, and keep everything else intact.
followed all the steps but it doesn’t appear in my iPhones list of ringtones… creating a playlist wont work either, my iTunes wont let me drag the newly made ringtone anywhere…
wait… sorry…
my mistake, there it is right in front of my face!
it all worked perfectly… thanks :)
Hey, was wondering if there’s a different file type required to get a new text message sound – I got the ringtone to work fine, but I want to customise my text message sounds as well!
it didnt work for me at all. i followed exactly what you said and it didnt work :(
i really want at least one ringtone on here without having to buy it for a dollar. please please help!!!
never mind it worked lol ur a genius! lol
OMG!!!!
Everything worked perfectly; i didn’t lose an data at all and i got a really cool ringtone
thank you sooooooo much :P