Free solution to Create & Transfer ringtones to iPhone on Mac

You may already how to use iRinger to create & transfer ringtones from Windows to iPhone. So, how about Mac? Any iRinger like solution? For Mac user, you can find applications such as iToner to transfer ringtones to iPhone. But, from what I found, all those applications are not free or open source applications. You have to pay. So, any free solution out there? Actually, Apple already gave us the free solution to create ringtone (even for songs not purchased from iTunes Store) & sync it to iPhone via iTunes. The trick is to cheat iTunes to identify your ringtone file using a different file extension. iTunes itself differentiates ringtone file from normal song file by using file extension and length of song. The extension for ringtone file is “.m4r” and iTunes limits the length of ringtone to 30 second. Any song file that meets these two requirements, you can add it to iTunes. Okay, enough for the explanation. Let’s start to try out how you can create & transfer ringtones using iTunes.

Note: The procedures should work on both iTunes 7.7 and 8.0. And actually you can also use the procedures on Windows too. But for Windows user, I suggest you to use iRinger, which is by far the easiest way to transfer ringtone on Windows.

Step-by-step guide to create & transfer ringtones using iTunes

Launch iTunes and select a song you want to convert to ringtone
Right-click on the song and click “Get Info” to view the song properties
Select “Options” tab. Next, check & fill in the “Start time” and “Stop time” to extract the portion of song you want to create as ringtone. Ensure the length is not longer than 30 seconds. Then, click “OK” to confirm.

Again, right-click on the song and select “Create ACC” (For iTunes 7.7, you should select “Convert Selection to ACC).

iTunes will automatically extract the portion of song you have filled in the previous step.

Next, right-click on the song again and select “Show in Finder”. This will launch Finder and locate the song file you just created.

Rename the file extension from “.m4a” to “.m4r”.

Next, go back to iTunes. Right-click on the song you have created and select “Delete”. Click “Keep File” when you’re prompted.

Go back to Finder and double-click on the ringtone file (.m4r) you have just renamed. The ringtone will automatically add it to iTunes ringtone. You can now sync it to iPhone using iTunes. Enjoy your new ringtone!

Note: For the last step, if it doesn’t work. You can manually add the ringtone into iTunes. In iTunes, select “Ringtones” in sidebar. Click “File” -> “Add to library…” and select the ringtone file you have just created.

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Tagged as: iPhone, jailbreak-iphone, ringtone

{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Bill October 29, 2008 at 7:03 am: I used this trick and was able to create two ringtones in a matter of seconds. The only issue was finding the option to convert the song to an AAC files.

My solution was to go to “Edit>Preferences>General”, then locate the “import settings…” button. Then I changed the “import using” drop down setting to “AAC encoder”. This change allows you to now go back to the song in the main itunes window and see a new option when right-clicking on the song, then scrolling down to “create AAC version…”

2 keven November 7, 2008 at 6:47 pm: I create the AAC version however when i click on the display file it did not show the .m4a what should i do for that ?

3 Simon Ng November 8, 2008 at 7:16 pm: Keven, you probably hide the file extension in Finder. You can check out this article on how to disable hiding the file extension.

4 Merlin November 15, 2008 at 3:24 am: thank you so much. i have been everywhere trying to find out how to do this. how easy is that. thanx again

5 Sherwin February 11, 2009 at 4:11 pm: Hi Simon,

I don’t think it has a limit of 40s anymore. I was able to play one whole song.

6 jomamma August 23, 2009 at 1:55 pm: wicked awesome man..thanx!!!!