How to Make a Ringtone from Any Song (iPhone & Android)

Before you start: what makes a good ringtone

A ringtone has to grab your attention in a noisy room and loop without sounding awkward. The best ones share a few traits:

• They start immediately on the hook, chorus or riff, not on a slow intro.
• They're short. Around 20–30 seconds is plenty; most calls are answered or rejected long before that.
• They're loud and bright. Mid-range sounds (vocals, guitars, synths) cut through better than deep bass, which small phone speakers can't reproduce.
• They fade gently so the repeat isn't jarring.

Step 1: Cut the clip

1. Open the song in the Audio Cutter. MP3, M4A, WAV and FLAC all work, as does the soundtrack of a video.
2. Find the hook. Click on the waveform to move the playhead and press Space to listen. Choruses usually show up as the densest, loudest blocks of the waveform.
3. Select about 30 seconds. Drag across the waveform, then type exact times into the Start and End boxes. Start a fraction before the first beat of the phrase.
4. Choose "Keep selection" and add a 0.5 s fade in and a 1–2 s fade out.
5. Download as MP3.

Tip: if the song is quiet compared with your other ringtones, run the clip through the Volume Booster and press Normalize to −1 dB.

Step 2a: Install the ringtone on Android

Android phones accept MP3 ringtones directly. Menus differ by manufacturer, but the process is similar everywhere:

1. Save the MP3 to your phone. Download it directly in the phone's browser, or copy it from a computer into the Ringtones folder of the phone's storage.
2. Open Settings → Sound (or Sound & vibration) → Phone ringtone.
3. Add your file. Tap the "+" or "Add ringtone" option, or choose "From internal storage", and pick your clip.
4. For a single contact, open the contact, tap Edit, and choose a custom ringtone there.

Step 2b: Install the ringtone on iPhone

iPhones don't let you pick an MP3 as a ringtone directly. It must be converted into Apple's ringtone format. There are two free ways to do this.

Option 1: GarageBand on the iPhone (no computer needed)

1. Save the MP3 to the Files app (download it in Safari and choose "Save to Files").
2. Open GarageBand (free from Apple) and start a new project with any instrument, then switch to the tracks view.
3. Import the clip with the loop browser icon → Files → your MP3, and drag it onto a track at the very start.
4. Go back to My Songs, long-press the project, and choose Share → Ringtone. Name it and export.
5. Choose "Use sound as…" → Standard Ringtone when prompted, or select it later in Settings → Sounds & Haptics → Ringtone.

GarageBand may shorten clips that are longer than its ringtone limit, which is another reason to keep your clip around 30 seconds.

Option 2: Using a computer

Convert the clip to AAC (an .m4a file), rename the extension to .m4r, connect the iPhone and drag the file onto the device in Finder (Mac) or into the Tones section of iTunes on Windows. The tone then appears in the iPhone's ringtone list.

Troubleshooting

Frequently asked questions