Free iPhone Ringtones

One very cool thing I figured out recently is a way to make free ringtones for my iPhone from any song I own.

Currently, to get a ringtone for the iPhone, you need to first check if the song of your choice exists in Apple's iTunes Store in the ringtone format. Most songs don't, so that's problem number one. Also, even if the song you want is there, you don't get to choose which part of the song you'd like to have as your ringtone. Finally, if the song is indeed available as a ringtone, you must purchase the song for 99 cents, and then, pay another 99 cents for the ringtone.

I know some of you may say, Gee, she's really counting pennies. Jeff couldn't stop laughing when he heard I worked hard for a couple of hours just to save $1.98 plus taxes. It's not the money, people; it's the principle involved. Why should I pay for a song I already own legally, and then pay extra just to make a segment of it into a ringtone? This is robbery.

So here's how it's done on Mac OS X Leopard, using iTunes Version 7.7.1 (11), for iPhone G3.

Part I: Splice Your MP3 File

First of all, you need to splice your legally obtained song so that you will have ready the segment you want as your ringtone. If you already know how to do this, skip ahead to Part II.

There are sound file editor programs out there that do splicing, e.g. cdparanoia on Linux. Because applications on the Mac are not nearly as abundant and free as on Linux, we're better off using existing programs. iTunes can accomplish the goal. Go ahead and start iTunes. Go to Preferences / Advanced / Importing, and change format to AAC.

Outside of iTunes, using Finder, locate your song file in the iTunes Music Library. Ctrl-click on the file and choose Duplicate. A new file is created in the same directory.

Back in iTunes, you'll see a duplicate of your chosen song in the iTunes Library. Ctrl-click on the duplicate and choose Get Info. In the new window, under Options, change the Start Time and Stop Time values so as to retain the segment you want to use as your ringtone. Make sure the segment is less than 40 seconds in length. Close the window. Next, ctrl-click on the MP3 file again, and choose Convert into AAC this time. As only the segment from Start Time to Stop Time will be converted, your duplicate copy of the song will become a segment in AAC format.

Part II: Rename File to m4r

The newly created AAC file has extension m4a. You need to change it to m4r.

Go back to the Finder program where you're already inside the directory where the new AAC file is. Ctrl-click on the AAC file and choose Get Info. In the new window, under the section Name & extension, change the extension to m4r. Close the window. A dialog box will pop up, asking you if that's what you really want to do. Choose "Use m4r".

Part III: Import File into iTunes

Go back to your iTunes program. Ctrl-click on the segment song, and choose Delete. When the dialogue box pops up, choose "Keep the file". This is very important because, while you want to delete the song from iTunes Library, you do not want to delete the physical file. Next, go to File / Import... and select the m4r file for importing. You'll notice in Finder that the physical file is removed, but in iTunes, the song appears under Library / Ringtones.

When you next sync your iPhone, you'll see that inside the sync page Ringtones, the new ringtone is listed there, ready to be synced. Unfortunately, the iPhone holds only one custom ringtone at a time. Nevertheless, now you've got your ringtone made out of your favourite song for free!