When the iPhone first introduced ringtones, there were a few ways to get them on to your iPhone. Some involved complex methods while others relied on 3rd party software as an intermediary to place ringtones in your iTunes library. However, the easiest way to hack ringtones was under our nose the entire time. It doesn’t get any easer than hacking directly through iTunes, does it? But how you ask? Let’s check it out.

iTunes uses the file extension “m4r” to distinguish ringtones from other songs in your library. The process to create your own ringtones is simple; take a DRM-free “.m4a” audio file (no longer than 30 seconds) and rename it to include the “.m4r” extension, then add it back in to your library. The file will automatically show up in your ringtones folder and you will be able to sync it to your iPhone!

That’s the basic gist, but follow these step-by-step directions and you’ll be creating your own custom ringtones in iTunes in no time.

1. Open iTunes, right-click on the DRM-free song that you’d like to make in to a ringtone and select “Get Info”
2. Go the “Options” tab, and find the “Start Time” and “Stop Time” check boxes. This is where you will clip your song to the appropriate length (remember to keep your ringtone under 30 seconds). Click OK once you have your song configured correctly.



3. Right-click on your newly “clipped” song and choose “Convert Selection to AAC“. This will re-encode the song with the new Start/Stop time stamp you configured in the previous step. If you don’t see the option to “Convert Selection to AAC“, you will need to change your import settings in iTunes. You can do this in the menu settings under iTunes > Preferences > General > Import Settings. Simply change the “Import Using” drop down from it’s current setting to “AAC Encoder“. If you have another preferred method of importing for other audio files, you can easily change this setting back after you’re done creating your ringtone(s).



4. Once the clip is done encoding, navigate to your iTunes Music folder and find the file, or simply right click on the file within iTunes and click “Show in Finder”. Once you’ve located the file in your iTunes Music folder, drag it to your Desktop. Now go back to iTunes and delete the version living inside of your iTunes Library. Don’t worry, this only deletes the copy inside the iTunes Music folder, the file on your Desktop will stay put.
5. Right-click on the file on your Desktop and choose “Get Info“. Under the “Name & Extension” area, change the extension from “.m4a” to “.m4r“. If you are an experienced OS X user, you can also simply click on name of the file on the Desktop and change the file extension that way as well.
6. Once the extension has been updated to “.m4r“, double click on the file to add it back to your iTunes Library. If you’ve done everything right, the file should show up under your Ringtone section. Now it’s just a matter of syncing your iPhone with iTunes and there you have it!

As you can see, there are a few steps, but the process is very straight-forward. However, this method only works on DRM-free songs and songs ripped in from your own CDs. If you’re interested in making ringtones out of your protected music downloaded from iTunes, check out this Life Hacker article. As of this writing, this method works with iTunes 8.0.1 and iPhone firmware 2.1 on both the original iPhone and new iPhone 3G. Now what are you waiting for, go make some ringtones!

Posted in Tips & Tricks