Remember those good, old days when creating an iPhone ringtone was as easy as renaming a song in your iTunes library to a “.m4r” extension and then syncing it back with your iPhone? No? Well, trust us when we say that iPhone ringtones were never easier (or free-er) to create.
That is, until iTunes 8. With the release of iTunes 8 – which brought with it Genius Playlists – creating iPhone ringtones has once again become a painless process. iTunes 8 allows the user to customize a particular song’s start- and end-time, paving the way for an iPhone ringtone creation “hack” that requires nothing more than iTunes itself.
Keep in mind that iTunes will allow you to create a ringtone from a song downloaded through the iTunes Music Store, but those ringtones come with fees… and no one likes fees. Follow this guide to create free iPhone ringtones for free using nothing more than iTunes.
To create simple, free iPhone ringtones from your iTunes library, follow these steps:
Note: This process works with MP3, ACC, and AIFF files.
Note: Only DRM-free songs can be used with this ringtone creation process.
Any song downloaded from iTunes Music Store will have DRM (Digital Rights Management), so don’t use those songs.
Any song ripped from a CD or downloaded from DRM-free sources (P2P, Amazon, your friend) will work just fine.
1. Fire up iTunes 8
2. Find the song you’d like to turn in to a ringtone
3. Right click on the song
Select “Get Info”
4. Hit the “Options” tab
5. Check both the “Start Time” and “End Time” boxes
6. Specify what time interval you’d like to use as your ringtone clip
7. Click “OK”
Make sure the song you want is still highlighted
8. Click on “Advanced” in your menu bar
9. Select “Create AAC Version” or “Create Apple Lossless Version”
10. A duplicate copy of your song will appear in iTunes – this new song will have the same filename but shorter “Time”
Go back to the original song and uncheck those “Start Time” and “End Time” boxes
11. Drag the duplicate song to your Desktop
12. Once the duplicate song is copied to your Desktop, delete the duplicate file in iTunes
13. On your Desktop, rename the file with the “.m4r” file extension – Use the new extension
This turns your song file into an iPhone ringtone file
14. Your “songname.m4a” file should now be named “songname.m4r”
15. Drag the newly renamed .m4r (songname.m4r) file back into iTunes
16. Drag the file over the “Library” column and release when “Library” becomes highlighted
You have to delete the duplicate song file (Step 12) otherwise iTunes won’t import your new .m4r file
17. You should see your new ringtone under “Ringtones” in iTunes
18. Sync your iPhone to get jiggy with your new iPhone ringtones!
By Will Park via http://www.intomobile.com/2008/10/07/iphone-ringtones-create-free-iphone-ringtones-using-itunes-8.html
November 19, 2008 at 6:42 pm
well…..it didnt work for me…when i draged it onto the desktop, it didnt say .mra…it was just the song name
November 29, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I think the best buy Iphone 3g 16 gb. and install it on his software version 2.2. Its large
touch screen and very comfortable realized sensory management. I bought a Iphone and happy!)
December 8, 2008 at 3:16 am
how do you ‘rename’ as m4r….? to simply rename the file wont change the file extension
December 16, 2008 at 3:00 am
i can do everything but it wont go into my ring tone can u help me??
December 31, 2008 at 7:47 pm
my file i want is protected. can i make it un-protected?
January 4, 2009 at 1:35 am
yes!
You have to burn a CD. When you do this, the DRM is removed (because the music is converted to a non-DRM-compatible media). After you burn the CD, you can rip it to your PC as an MP3 file which no longer has DRM.
March 6, 2009 at 4:21 am
I don’t have the option to “Create AAC Version” or “Create Apple Lossless Version”. In its place is “Create MP3 version. BUT the song is already in MP3 format. I have iTunes 8.0.2 – please help!
June 8, 2009 at 5:32 pm
i don’t know how to change the file extension to be m4r instead of saying m4a. how do i change the file extension?