How to Quickly Make a Ringtone in iTunes

How to Quickly Make a Ringtone in iTunes

GarageBand is great for huge projects and making your very own custom ringtones, but just launching the application can sometimes be a huge overkill. If you're in a jiffy and you just want to quickly extract a snippet, you can trim your favorite song in iTunes and sync it to your device. Read on to learn how it's done!

1. Locate and Trim the Song

The first step to creating a new ringtone is to locate the song in your iTunes library that you want to turn into a ringtone. Once you’ve found that perfect song, right-click and select “Get Info.”

Navigate to the “Options” tab, and check the box labeled “Start Time” and “Stop Time.” In the Start Time box, enter the time in the song that you wish your ringtone to start playing, and in the Stop Time box, add 30 seconds to the Start Time. If it’s going to be a ringtone, it needs to be 30-seconds in length. Select the OK button when you’re done changing the start and stop times.

To create the 30-second version of the song, right-click on the song and select “Create AAC version.”

You can now uncheck the Start and Stop time in the Get Info panel for the original song.

2. Change the File Format

Locate the new 30-second version of the song in the Finder by right-clicking on the song in iTunes and selecting “Show in Finder.”

With the song selected in the Finder window, change the file format to “.m4r” A dialog will appear asking if you wish to change the file format. Select “Use .m4r” to continue.

3. Import and Sync

Next, you’ll need to import the newly-changed .m4r ringtone into iTunes by either double-clicking on the song in the Finder, or by dragging and dropping it to the iTunes icon in the dock.

Once that’s done, your ringtone will appear in the Ringtones section of iTunes. You can preview the ringtone by double-clicking on it just as you would to play any other song in iTunes.

To sync the custom ringtone, select your device in the iTunes sidebar, and navigate to the Tones tab. Check the box labeled “Sync Tones,” and then select either “All Tones” or “Select Tones.” Once the ringtone is selected, click the Sync button.

After your device is synced, you can select your ringtone by navigating to Settings > Sounds.

Cory Bohon is a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer. Follow this article's author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.

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