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 is 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.
Instructions
Things You’ll Need:
- iTunes
- Mac or Windows computer
- Non-DRM song (i.e., one not bought from the iTunes Store)
- Open iTunes.
- Find the song that you want to make into a ringtone.
- Listen to the song and find the part of it you want to use. The chorus may be a good place to start.
- Write down the start and stop times of the clip.
- Right-click the song and select “Get Info.”
- Click the “Options” tab.
- 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.
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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. - Click “OK.”
- Right-click your song again and select “Convert Selection to AAC.” Wait for iTunes to convert your song. It will create a duplicate version.
- Right-click the ringtone and select “Delete.”
- Click on the “Keep Files” button.
- 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.
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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.
- Click “Use .m4r” or the PC equivalent when the system warns you that the change may affect the use of your file.
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Double-click the ringtone file. ITunes will automatically add it to your ringtones folder in your iTunes Music Library. - Connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones.
Tips & Warnings
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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.
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Instead of deleting it, you can also drag the newly converted ringtone to your desktop from iTunes and follow the rest of the steps.
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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.
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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.
