How to Create Custom Ringtones

Did you know that you can create your own ringtones? It’s actually super easy, if you just follow a few easy steps.

Creating Custom Ringtones

First thing you have to do, after you choose your song of choice, is pick a part of the song you want to use for your ringtone. Since songs are usually a lot longer than a ringtone is intended for, you will have to choose a fragment of a song. Once you choose your fragment, make sure to write down the start and ending time of the fragment you are going to use for your ringtone. You can choose a song fragment up to 30 seconds long.

After you decided on your song fragment, you will have to right-click or ctrl-click the selected song and then click Get Info on the context menu to display the Item Information dialog box for this song in the title bar, if you are using Windows. Keep in mind that on a Mac, the dialog box shows the song's title rather than the words Item Information.

Then you will have to click the Options tab to bring it to the front of the Item information dialog box.

You will then have to click the Start Time box and enter the start time for when you want the ringtone to begin. Make sure when setting the Start Time value and Stop Time Value to use a colon to separate the minutes and seconds, and use a period to separate the seconds and thousandths of seconds, like this for example: 1:22.100.

Creating custom ringtones. Photo by Elena.

After you enter the Start Time, you will then have to enter the Stop Time in the appropriate box. iTunes will once again select the Stop Time check box automatically for you.

Once you have both times entered, you will then click the OK button to close the Item Information dialog box.

After you close the Item Information dialog box, you will have to Right-click or ctrl-click the song, and then click Create AAC Version from the context menu. iTunes will then create a new song file containing just the section on the song you specified.  If for whatever reason the command on the context menu is not a Create AAC Version, you will have to change the current encoder. To do this, you will have to choose Edit-Preferences (if using Windows) or iTunes-Preferences (if using Mac) to display the iTunes or Preferences dialog box. Then on the General Tab, you will need to click Import Settings. In the Import Settings dialog box, choose AAC Encoder in the Import Using drop-down list and iTunes Plus in the Settings drop-down list. To finish, click the OK button to close out each dialog box.

Once you have that figured out, you will need to Right-click or ctrl-click the new shorter song file, and then click Show in Finder on the context menu. iTunes will then open a Finder window showing the new song file.

Press Return to display an edit box around the song name, if you want to edit the name to identify your ringtone.

Change the file extension from m4a to m4r, and then press Return to apply the change. The m4r extension indicates the file type is a ringtone.

Leave the Finder window open for the moment and go back to iTunes.

With the new song file still selected, choose Edit-Delete. Now iTunes will display a dialog box confirming you want to remove the file.

Click the Remove button and iTunes will display a second dialog box asking if you want to move the file to Trash.

When prompted, make sure to click the Keep File button.

In the Finder window, click the ringtone file and drag it to the Library section of the Source list in the iTunes window.

You are probably reading this and thinking “This was supposed to be easy!” But I promise you, you are almost done! One of the last things you have to do is set the original song file to play only your ringtone section. You will have to restore it back to normal. To do that, just follow these steps.

To restore the song file back to normal, you will have to Right-click or ctrl-click the original file in the iTunes window, and then choose Get Info to display the Item Information dialog box.

If the Summary tab doesn't appear in the front, click it to bring it there.

Clear the Start time check box and the Stop Time check box that you previously entered.

Click the OK button to close the Item Information dialog box.

As your last step, you will need to click the Ringtones item in the Source list to display your ringtones. The file you created should appear there, and you can now start using your new ringtone!

Earlier versions of iTunes use to have a nice feature for making ringtones from songs bought from the iTunes Store. Apple unfortunately removed this feature ever since iTunes 10 came out.

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