Create a Free iPhone Ringtone Using a Song in iTunes

Tired of the same old ringtone? You may have thousands of potential ringtones already on your computer and not even realize it. With iTunes, you can turn any song in your library into a free ringtone that you can easily use on your iPhone. Best of all, you don’t need to install new software or upload anything to a strange website. See Step 1 below to learn how.

Steps

  1. Open iTunes. You can use any song file that you have in iTunes to create your free ringtone.
  2. Find the song you want to turn into a ringtone. Open your Music library, locate any song you would like to make a ringtone and select it.
    • Ringtones are limited to 30 seconds, and you will need to manually input the start and stop time. Listen to the song and take note of where you want the ringtone to start and stop.
  3. Right-click the song. If you are using a one-button Mac, hold down the Control (Ctrl) key and then click. Select “Get Info” from the menu.
  4. Click the Options tab. This will open the options for the specific music file that you have selected.
  5. Set your ringtone start and stop time. Check the boxes labeled “Start time” and “Stop time”. Enter in the times that you want. The format is M:S:MS, where M = minutes, S = seconds, and MS = milliseconds. Click OK when finished.
    • Make sure that your segment is no longer than 29 seconds to ensure compatibility.
    • Listen to the segment before continuing to ensure that it sounds like you want it to. Go back to the options menu to adjust the times if necessary.
  6. Create an AAC version of the adjusted song. When you are happy with your timing, right-click (Ctrl+Click) on song again and select “Create AAC Version”. This will create a second song that just contains the segment you designated.
  7. Revert the original song. Find and select the original-length song in iTunes, right-click and select “Get Info”. Once in the Options tab, uncheck the Start and Stop time boxes and click OK. This will revert the song back to its original length. It will not affect the shorter AAC version you just created.
  8. Change the file extension in Mac. In order to place the song in the Tones library, you will need to change the extension from m4a to m4r. To do this on a Mac, follow these steps. If you are using Windows, skip to the next Step:
    • Select the new AAC segment. There will now be 2 versions of the song in your iTunes library, select the one with the :30 (or whatever you chose) time duration. Right-click (Ctrl+Click) and select “Show in Finder”.
    • A finder window will pop up and there will be 2 versions of the song. The version with the smaller size is the one you want. Right-click (Ctrl+Click) on the smaller version and select “Get Info”.
    • Once the “Get Info” window pops up, go to the “Name and Extension” section and change the extension from .m4a to .m4r and exit the window. You will be asked if you’re sure you want to change, select “Use .m4r”.
  9. Change the file extension in Windows. In order to place the song in the Tones library, you will need to change the extension from m4a to m4r. To do this on Windows, follow these steps:
    • Select the new AAC segment. There will now be 2 versions of the song in your iTunes library, select the one with the :30 (or whatever you chose) time duration. Right-click on it and select “Show in Windows Explorer”. This will open the folder that contains the file.
    • Turn on file extensions. If your Explorer is configured to hide the extensions of files, you will need to enable them. Click Tools and select Folder Options. In the View tab, uncheck the “Hide extensions for known file types” box.
    • Right-click on the smaller version of the song. There will be two files with almost the same name. Look at the file size to determine which is the shorter version. Select “Rename”.
    • Change the extension from “.m4a” to “.m4r” and press Enter.
  10. Remove the short version from your iTunes playlist. Open the iTunes window and select the short version of the song. Right-click on it and select Delete from the menu. Delete the song from the library, but DO NOT delete it from the hard drive.
  11. Double-click the m4r version of the song in the Finder or Explorer window. This should automatically reopen iTunes, and the m4r file will be added to your Tones library. Click the Library menu on the left side of iTunes and switch to Tones to verify that it is there.
  12. Sync the ringtone to your iPhone. You can now sync your iPhone as usual, whether you do it manually or automatically the ringtone will appear in the ringtone section on your phone. Make sure that ringtones are set to be synced when you sync your iPhone.[1]
    • You can adjust what is synced by selecting your iPhone in the Devices menu, and then opening the Tones menu in the device summary.
  13. Set your ringtone. Once you’ve synced the ringtone to your iPhone, you can set it as your active ringtone by opening Settings, selecting Sounds, and then tapping Ringtone. Your new ringtone should be on the top of the list.

Tips

  • Before beginning it may be helpful to find a song you would like to use, listen to it and pick a 30 second clip you would like to use for your tone. Write down the specific start and stop time of the clip before following below instructions.

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Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://osxdaily.com/2010/09/04/make-free-iphone-ringtones-in-itunes-10/
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