The iPhone has come a long way since it first made an appearance in 2007. Unfortunately, the process to set a song as your own custom ringtone or alert has not.

This might be the reason you always seem to hear the same old iPhone tones, as there are quite a few steps involved in making a custom ringtone for an iPhone. Apple still sells ringtones via the iTunes store, so we thought we’d remind you that there’s also a free way to add your own ringtones to your iPhone.

There are also a few other tones and alerts you can customize for a more personal device.

1. Prepare Your Song or Alert

It should go without saying that you’ll need to choose a song or sound that you want to use as a ringtone or alert, whether it’s the theme tune to M.A.S.H. or the second-long “You’ve been spotted!” noise from Metal Gear Solid. This is your source material, and it might come from an MP3 you downloaded, or a song that’s already in your Apple Music or iTunes library.

You can use any song or sound as long as you’ve got the file in a DRM-free format. Essentially, that means that if you normally stream music through Apple Music or Spotify, you’ll need to download or import a file from elsewhere to use it as your ringtone. For the same reason, you also can’t use songs you bought through the iTunes Store.

If you want to change your iPhone ringtone without using a computer, you’ll need to use GarageBand to make a ringtone instead.

After getting the source file, you need to trim the song down to around 30-seconds for ringtones. This is something you can accomplish with Apple Music, iTunes, or any other audio editor. You can use any one of the methods below.

Using Apple Music or iTunes

Again, this will only work with music you have imported directly (from your own files).

Find the song you would like to use in your library (import it if you haven’t already), Control-click or right-click on it, and then select Get Info. Navigate to the Options tab where you’ll see Start and Stop cues. You can use these to create a shorter version of your song by choosing when you want playback to start and stop.

Ringtones can’t be longer than 30 seconds, so make sure you keep it that length or less, no matter where the start time is. Once you’ve selected a range, hit OK.

Start and stop times in iTunes

Now with the song you’ve just edited selected, head to File > Convert and choose Create AAC Version. A duplicate song that’s shorter than the original should appear. Click and drag it to your desktop for safe keeping, then delete it from your Apple Music or iTunes library. You should also go back to the original song and remove your Start and Stop cues.

If you don’t see an option to Create AAC Version, open the Apple Music or iTunes Preferences and go to Files > Import Settings, then set Import Using to AAC Encoder.

Using QuickTime Player

QuickTime Player on the Mac is a powerful tool with some nifty hidden features. Simply open any audio file you’ve downloaded in QuickTime, head to Edit > Trim and drag the sliders till you’re happy with your selection. Again, you need to limit the audio to 30 seconds or less. When you’re ready, head to File > Export > Audio Only and save the file to your desktop.

Trim option in QuickTime

The file will be in AAC format, which is just what you need.

Using Another Audio Editor

Other audio editors will provide you with much more control over your audio file. You can manipulate audio on a timeline, add effects, boost volume levels, or create something entirely unique. Check out our favorite Mac audio editors to find something that fits your budget.

The key is to export to AAC format. In case your chosen audio editor can’t do this, you’ll have to use Apple Music or iTunes instead:

  1. Save your audio to .WAV (uncompressed) format.
  2. Import your file to Apple Music or iTunes using File > Add to Library.
  3. Find the file you just imported, select it, then head to File > Convert > Create AAC Version.
  4. Drag the new AAC file to your desktop, then delete both the original and AAC duplicate from your iTunes library.
Create AAC option in iTunes

2. Change File Extension and Import It

Now that you’ve got your audio trimmed down to size and in AAC format, it’s time to trick your computer into labeling it as a ringtone. Find the file on your desktop, then rename it and change the extension from M4A to M4R. To do this, Control-click or right-click the file and click Rename.

M4A file on a Desktop

On a Mac you may only need to add the file extension, and you’ll be prompted when you’ve done it correctly. If you don’t see the original file extension, open Finder and go to Finder > Preferences > Advanced > Show all filename extensions.

If you’re using Windows and you can’t see the file extension, you’ll need to tweak a setting. To do this open File Explorer and go to View > Show then select File Name Extensions. On older versions of Windows, you may need to visit Start > Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > File Explorer Options > View then uncheck Hide extensions for known file types and hit Apply.

You should now be able to see file extensions and, more importantly, change your file from M4A or AAC to M4R. All that’s left to do is sync your M4R file to your iPhone.

3. Sync Your iPhone

Connect your iPhone to your computer using a USB cable. If prompted, agree to Trust the computer or iPhone from the popup on either device. Then open Finder (if you’re using macOS Catalina or later) or iTunes (if you’re using Windows or an older version of macOS).

Select your iPhone from the sidebar in Finder or the top-left corner in iTunes, then go to the General or Summary tab. Enable the option to Manually manage music, movies and TV shows.

iPhone Summary in Finder

Finally, drag-and-drop your M4R ringtone file into the General or Summary tab, then click Sync to sync it to your iPhone.

Once complete pick up your iPhone and head to Settings > Sounds & Haptics (or Sounds & Vibration on older devices) and select your tone under the Ringtones option. You can also set these ringtones as any other alert tone including text tones, new mail alerts, reminders and so on.

Other Sounds You Can Customize

Your new ringtone can be used as a system-wide alert for all contacts, or you can apply specific tones to certain contacts. To do this head to Phone > Contacts and find the contact you want to assign a ringtone to. Hit Edit and scroll down till you see Ringtone. You can also apply a custom Text Tone here too.

Apple’s in-built Clock application can also be customized to sound different alerts. The Timer function is basic but can use stock sounds and any ringtones you have purchased on manually synced via Apple Music or iTunes. The Alarm feature can use a different tone for each alarm set, including stock tones, synced tones, and any music you have synced to your device.

And yes, that includes DRM-protected Apple Music songs. Simply scroll to the top of the list when specifying an alarm tone and tap Pick a song.

You Can Still Buy Tones

A much easier way of getting ringtones onto your device is by buying them through the iTunes Store. This seems to be the main reason Apple hasn’t made adding your own tones easier, with fewer hoops to jump through. It also means that people are still buying ringtones for a few dollars a pop.

Ringtone store in iTunes

Whether you want to put the effort into converting, importing, and syncing is up to you. You can buy two seconds of Chewbacca roaring for $0.99, or you can find the sound yourself on the internet and do it for free. Check out our collection of video game ringtones for more ideas.

Get More Free Ringtone Ideas Online

Learning how to set a song as a ringtone on your iPhone is only half the battle, the other half is choosing which song to use. Luckily, there are plenty of websites you can visit to get ideas of free sounds you can use for your iPhone ringtone to get plenty of inspiration.