Want to use an existing mp3 file as a ring tone for your iPhone?

In a few steps you can.

1. Choose your song in iTunes, right click, choose ‘Get Info’.
2. Under the ‘Options’ tab there is a ‘Start time’ and ‘Stop time’, edit your song so that it plays only what you want. Don’t worry you can undo the Start and Stop times when we are done.
3. Click ‘Okay’ to save changes to your Start and Stop times.
4. Right click the song again and choose ‘Create AAC Version’. This will create a new file and add it to iTunes. You should see it right below your old file.
5. Right click the old song and under the ‘Options’ tab reset the Start and Stop times.
6. Right click the new song and choose ‘Show in Finder’ (or equivalent PC option).
7. When you find this new file, rename the extension from m4a to m4r.
8. Now delete the new file in iTunes, right click on the new file, choose ‘Delete’, then ‘Remove’ but choose to ‘Keep File’.
9. Now drag your .m4r file back onto the Library icon in iTunes.

You’re done!

Reminder: make sure you are syncing your ringtones to your phone.

My dad’s ring tone is now Yakety Sax, I figure Benny Hill would be proud.

(Tested on iTunes 9.0.1 for OS X.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 9:31 pm and is filed under geek, howto, iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.