How to create iPhone ringtones

Learn how to make iPhone ringtones from your favorite songs for free. This tutorial will show you how!

Confirmed working with:

iTunes version 7.5, iPhone version 1.1.2
iTunes version 7.6, iPhone version 1.1.3
iTunes version 7.6.1.9, iPhone version 1.1.4
iTunes version 7.6.2.9, iPhone version 1.1.4
iTunes version 7.7.1.11, iPhone version 2.0.1
iTunes version 7.7.1.11, iPhone version 2.0.2 (latest)

What You Will Need

A computer
AVS Audio Tools, download a trial to give it a try
Your favorite song file in one of the following formats: MP3, WAV, AMR, M4A, WMA, AAC

Watch the Step-by-Step Guide

Getting Started

With AVS Audio Tools, Ringtone Maker use the file browser (on the left) to find the song you want to edit into a ringtone. Double click the song file to open it.

Use one of the two play buttons on the bottom, "Play" or "Play Looped" to play the song and find the section that you want to use as your ringtone. Select the section by clicking and dragging anywhere on the audio wave. Your audio selection does not have to be perfect to start with, and I recommended that you select a little extra to the left and right of your desired audio. Click the "Trim" button at top (scissors icon), to trim your selection. This will delete everything except your selection.

Select the section you want as your ringtone

Since we have some unwanted audio to the left and to the right we can delete those bits now. Use your "Play" buttons to play and identify exactly where you want your ringtone to begin. You can also use the "Zoom In" and "Zoom Out" tools to zoom in and out of the audio wave to closely see what you want to keep or delete. Make your selection and click the "Delete" button (red X).

Select the left and right sections you want to delete

Once you have the audio cut and trimmed to your desire, you can save your ringtone using the "Save" button. You will want to select the location where the ringtone will be saved to. Since this ringtone will be used on an iPhone, you should save it to "My Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Ringtones". You can select several export formats, for the iPhone you should select the M4A file. Adjusting the Sample rate and Bit rate will allow you to adjust quality and file size of the export. Click "Save".

Now browse to "My Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Ringtones", you will have to rename your .m4a file to .m4r, this will allow iTunes to recognize it as a ringtone file.

Finally you want to use iTunes to add the ringtone file to your library. Select "Add File to Library...", choose your ringtone file that you just renamed and click "Open".