Update 12am 9/8: It appears that iTunes 7.4.1 blocks the transfer of these homemade ringtones. If you haven't updated yet, you may want to load up on song snippets first...
iTunes 7.4 makes it especially easy to add and sync ringtones with your iPhone--without having to pay for a third-party installer. TUAW reader Arnold Kim passed along a link to this fabulous MacRumors post with a method attributed to "Cleverboy" and Nicholas "Drudge" Penree sent me additional instructions.
It goes basically like this: iTunes uses the m4r file extension for Ringtones. If you copy an AAC file from your library and rename it from .m4a to .m4r and then add it back to iTunes, the program reads it back in as a ringtone rather than a normal library track. You can then sync it to your iPhone. I've tested this with both an MP3 that I converted to AAC and with a track I purchased from the iTunes store. They both worked.
The secret lies in making sure the name change happens properly. This isn't a big problem on Windows. On the Mac though there are protections in place to keep you from renaming the file extension--this isn't to keep you from making ringtones. It's to keep you from hurting your files. So either do the rename in Terminal or select the file you want to rename and open the Info window. Scroll down to the Name & Extension field and change the extension to m4r there.
At this time, the m4r items do not appear in your Library. You can only see them when you select an iPhone in the sources list and then click on the Ringtones tab.
In other news, the download-free-iTunes-previews trick seems to be dead until further notice.
Further notice: Okay, I got the preview trick fixed but it's..trickier. You've got to download the iTunes pages as if they were webpages and then extract the URLs from the page source. I'll write this up if there's any interest. Let me know in the comments
Update: Use this technique only for tracks you've copied from your personal CD collection.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
9-07-2007 @ 11:13AM
Jonathan said...
wow, that's really simple, could this be one of those things you can't officially do, but is made simple on purpose? Like the iMove or audio CD trick for Fairplay
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:15AM
Fred said...
This is good news! Now I can keep my NES ringtones!
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:16AM
ryan said...
Wait... I've never had trouble changing file extensions in OS X...
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:17AM
Ryan Meyers said...
Sometimes I seriously wonder if Apple purposely makes it easy to hack these kind of things. It makes them look good to the content providers because they promote selling the tracks to you, but then for that user base that thinks it is ridiculous to pay twice for a song just to have a 30 second preview on your phone, they leave it easy to hack. What does Apple care as long as they keep on selling phones? Or perhaps Apple's stance is "it will get hacked eventually so why invest that much time in it?".
Either way, this is awesome. I will probably end up buying the 30 second clips to support iTunes and keep content providers happy, but for the songs that I want as a ringtone that aren't "eligable" this is a great solution. :)
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:25AM
neil said...
please do the tutorial erica!
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:30AM
Debbie Ripps said...
Yes Erica, this topic is a perfect one for step by step tutorial. Thanks for keeping us updated on the iPhone news! I for one, look forward to your posts as you are the iPhone guru! Thanks!
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:40AM
Mitch said...
The iTunes preview - download was great. Please explain how to continue using it.
Thanks!!!!
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:41AM
GrantMeStrength said...
Hmm. I've got the Ring tones files to show up in iTunes, but they don't show up on the phone itself. Is this the part that requires a forthcoming iPhone software update?
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:44AM
DrWho said...
Wake Me Up Before You Go Go? Yikes!
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:44AM
Carl Trimble said...
Everyone praises you in this post, but just a few moments ago they were ready to mame you. Crazy apple cult members!
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:44AM
Daryl Spitzer said...
I tried renaming a .m4p (Cake's Never There) to .m4r and opened it, but nothing happened. I also tried using Add to Library in iTunes, and nothing happened. Finally (after reading http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2007/09/07/free-custom-ringtones-in-itunes-7-4/) I created a "Ringtones" folder in my "iTunes Music" folder and copied it there, and then used Add to Library. Finally it showed up in the Ringtones tab. But I wasn't in the list of ringtones on my iPhone after syncing. (I tried switching from "All ringtones" to "Selected ringtones" with no luck.)
Then I tried this again with a .mp3, and it still doesn't show up on my iPhone. :-(
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:48AM
Mitch said...
I used the TUAW provided iTunes 30 second preview grab with iFuntastic for ringtones and it worked great.
I tried switching .m4a to .m4r and voila! it showed up in iTunes under the Ringtones tab ready to be synched over to my iPhone.
This is great!
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:51AM
jonathan ober said...
Got mine to work, and it was easy, breezy...now, I have "free" ringtones. I say free, because well in my business time is money and I just wasted fifteen minutes looking up how to get ringtones.
15 minutes = 5 bucks...
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:52AM
Andy said...
Please write up the tutorial.
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 11:53AM
Jeff said...
It only seems to work with songs not purchased from the iTS. Songs imported from CDs seem to work fine. Is anyone able to do it with songs purchased from itunes?
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 12:06PM
arkowi said...
man, i am glad i didn't spend money on one of those iphone ringtone programs. this is super easy.
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 12:08PM
JN said...
#13 - get a new job.
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 12:22PM
Aron Trimble said...
Erica, will SendSong.app be updated to reflect this change?
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 12:24PM
Daryl Spitzer said...
I got it to work by converting the mp3 to AAC (in iTunes) and renaming the .m4a to .m4r and putting that in the "Ringtones" folder. (So I've only been able to get .m4a files to work.)
Now I need to find a decent sound editor.
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 12:28PM
Nelson said...
Erica, I would like to know how to get the download-free-iTunes-previews trick working. Please post it somewhere or e-mail it to me if nobody else is interested in this! Cheers!
Reply