Comments on: Putting custom ringtones on your iPhone

By: Shawn

Shawn — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:23:02 +0000

there’s also an awesome free app that will let you make custom ringtones. found it the other day — http://mobile17.com/

it worked really well and was super easy to use!

By: Eugene

Eugene — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:17:55 +0000

Try highlighting the file, right-clicking it, and selecting Properties from the menu. In Properties, Type of file should read “Ringtone (.m4r) and Opens with iTunes. If not, click Change… then choose the program you want to use to open this file. Select OK and then OK again. That should do the trick.

In Vista like XP there is also a way to show the file extensions so you can change them. From the Organize menu, select Folder and Search Options, View tab, then uncheck ‘Hide extensions for known file types.’ Click OK and viola, the extensions are displayed. You can proceed to change the extension, although remember that a file must really “be” what its extension suggests. If a file is not really a iTumes Rington then changing its extention to .m4r will not solve the problem. You must convert the file to an iTumes Ringtone (don’t as me how, I don’t know the specific steps). Ordinarily when a file “is” what it is, its extension will automatically reflect that. Changing an extension is only when you know the file is a certain format, but because it was sent by email missing its extension (perhaps to allow the email to fly under the radar due to virus blockers) you can proceed to add the correct extension. For example, changing the Excel file with .xls extension to Word file .doc extension will not magically turn an Excel file into a Word file. However, if someone sends you a Word file and accidentally named it with an .xls extension, or no extension at all, and you know it’s a Word file, you can safely add the .doc or .docx extension (depending on the version of Word) and it will open in Word. Same holds true with iTunes Ringtone files.

By: Kitten

Kitten — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:01:33 +0000

Hi Ezra
I can only guess at the problem, since I am a Mac user, and don’t use Vista, but it sounds like perhaps your settings in Windows Explorer may be set to NOT show file extensions, commonly the default since Windows doesn’t want you messing around with them. In older versions of Windows you could change that by looking for a checkbox that said “hide file extensions” and deselecting it – then once you “see” the file extensions you can actually change them. By just adding it to what you see, you’re not really changing the file extention to .m4r, you’re just adding that to the name so it would look like this if you COULD see the extension: song.m4r.m4a – which iTunes would think is just a normal song file. You must be able to actually change the extension, not add to the file name.

You may have to look up how to change that setting in Vista so that Windows Explorer always shows the file extensions.

Good luck!

By: Ezra

Ezra — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 08:44:42 +0000

When I go and find the file in the finder in vista, after I have created the snippet, I go to rename it, but there is no extension to change, and when I add .m4r to the end of the song name it launches into my music library, and the song title in the finder goes back to having no extension. What can I do?

Thanks for the help
-Ezra

By: JonnyT

JonnyT — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:24:34 +0000

Ahh, well I used a website to do it and it worked good and only took mayb 5 minutes

By: Kitten

Kitten — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:15:51 +0000

Finder is the Mac equivalent of Windows Explorer – it’s just the file browser…..so use Windows Explorer to locate the file…

By: JonnyT

JonnyT — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:11:59 +0000

What “finder” I have windows Vista :S

By: Kitten

Kitten — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:17:37 +0000

Hey JonnyT

When you have your song snippet in iTunes, you have to first remove it from the Library of Music, but DON’T click “yes” to send it to the trash, click “No”, then find it using Finder – then you can change the extension using Finder. You need to rename the extension .m4r

Then when it’s renamed you simply re-open it with iTunes, and it will be in your Ringtone section of the Library.

This works perfectly with the most current version of iTunes and the iPhone 3G and 3Gs – I’ve tested both.

By: JonnyT

JonnyT — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:47:04 +0000

Hey Kitten, I just got my iPhone 3G last night, I cant get to change the file to .mr instead of m4. Could you please help?

By: Kitten

Kitten — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:55:50 +0000

HI Marine – that sounds like a very odd problem.

I do know that in the past when I would sync my phone, it would revert my selected custom ringtones back to whatever was previously the default I had set from the standard ringtones, and it would do that for both the custom ringtones I had set for some of my individual contacts as well as the default ring for any incoming call that wasn’t associated with those contacts, but I think that went away with one of the last two or three software updates. I checked by doing a sync just now and it kept my changes to both the default ring and contact’s rings….

So I can only suggest that you make sure your software is up to date, and beyond that perhaps make an appointment at your local Apple store with one of their Geniuses…..good luck!