How to Make Custom iPhone Ringtones for Free

So, you bought an iPhone. You love the phone and all its features, but wish you didn't have to pay for your songs twice to get a ringtone. There are plenty of songs in your music library, but no way to make ringtones from any of them. Or are there? Actually, with a little bit of trickery (nothing illegal) you can create ringtones from any one of your non-DRM songs in your iTunes library easily and for free. This works on both Mac and Windows PCs.

*Please note: there may be differences among all the possible combinations of iTunes versions and operating system versions (see Tips below for a way to work around the syncing issues).

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• iPhone
• iTunes
• Mac or Windows Computer
• Non-DRM song (i.e. one not bought from the iTunes Store)

1. Open iTunes.

2. Find the song that you want to make into a ringtone.

3. Listen to the song and find the part of it you want to use. The chorus may be a good place to start.

4. Write down the start and stop times of the clip.

5. Right-click the song and select "Get Info."

6. Click the "Options" tab.

7. Type in the start time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Start Time" in the minutes:seconds (i.e. 2:01) format.

8. 

   Type in the end time of your ringtone in the text box next to "Stop Time." Make sure the ringtone is no more than 40 seconds long.

9. Click "OK."

10. Right-click your song again and select "Convert Selection to AAC." Wait for iTunes to convert your song. It will create a duplicate version.

11. Right-click the ringtone and select "Delete."

12. Click on the "Keep Files" button.

13. Find the file. It's usually in your User folder under Music > iTunes > iTunes Music and under the band's name. It will have an extension of "m4a."

14. 

    Replace the "m4a" extension of your ringtone with "m4r". You can either double-click slowly to rename your file, or right-click and select "Get Info" on a Mac or "Rename" on a Windows PC.

15. 

    Click "Use .m4r" or the PC equivalent when the system warns you that the change may affect the use of your file.

16. 

    Double-click the ringtone file. ITunes will automatically add it to your ringtones folder in your iTunes Music Library.

17. Connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are having trouble syncing the ringtones to your iPhone, find the ringtone in your Ringtones folder and change the extension back to .M4A, then attempt to sync again.
• Instead of deleting it, you can also drag the newly converted ringtone to your desktop from iTunes and follow the rest of the steps.
• There may be some problems with the latest version of Leopard; renaming the file may not work properly, and you won't be able to add it to the Ringtones folder.
• This will not work with songs bought at the iTunes store or that have DRM (copy protection). Your best bet is to use a song that you have imported from a CD.

[codybr]

on 11/17/2009 This works, but too many steps. The easier way is to go to mobilespin.net and use their free online ringtone tool. After 4 steps you get a .m4r file, download to MAC or PC and drag/drop to iTunes and sync

[zeifgeist]

on 11/16/2009 Thanks for the instructions. Its a simple thing to do. Why pay for 'em? Why even download a program when you can easily do it yourself?
17 steps!! Sooo hard! Gotta download a program to do it for me :P
I'm so spoiled for doing it myself....

[alexiapetrakos]

on 11/16/2009 This article was written before there were easy tools to make ringtones. :)

[wadester]

on 11/14/2009 When we have 17 steps on how to make a ringtone for a $300 phone, I think we are getting way too spoiled as a nation. But it's a very interesting article.

[pieceofscrap]

on 11/13/2009 Very informative article! Thank you for sharing this How To.