In iTunes version 8, they have removed the option to 'convert to AAC'.

What to do now!

They haven't removed the option to convert to AAC. You just have to have AAC selected as your Import method of choice.

In OS X, you can find this under Preferences ->General Tab->Import Settings->Import Using AAC Encoder.

Highlight the song u want to convert by clicking on it once and head up to the toolbar and click on advanced it should show up there.

Not there in Windows version of iTunes v8.216. Does anyone know of a way to do this now?

hi....how can i file extension ..i mean from .m4a to .m4r
tell me in detail....

If you're in Windows you must open the folder containing the file...

Typically My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\ *THAT ARTIST*\ *THAT ALBUM*\

Make sure you have your folder options set to display file extensions. If you don't know how to do that then go here : http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=193

Rename .m4a to .m4r

Cut and paste into
My Music\iTunes\Ringtones

Click on the file and drag it to your toolbar into iTunes.

Sync and enjoy.

The clip must be under 30 seconds to work, however.

How do you change the file type (extension) from m4a to m4r?

You must find the file you want to change. At the top click on Tools >> Folder Options. Go to the View tab. Under Hidden Files and Folders uncheck the box labeled Hide Extensions for known file types. Click Ok or Apply. From there you can do the simple rename process and change it to m4r.

Thanks a lot....it works like a charm
-Valli

how I can do that in vista?

http://makeownringtone.com supports AAC format.
You can upload an mp3 file, and crop it right on the web page.

didn't seem to work for me : / apparently i don't even have a ringtones folder in my itunes folder

do you have the latest version of iTunes?

is the songs that i can convert to ringtone for iphone only the song that have to be buy from apple?

Hi Guys,

I am also not able to find the ringtone folder inside "Music\iTunes\Ringtones"

Please assist.

Regards

I can find the ringtones folder, but I can't drag it into itunes once I convert it. I tried everything. whats next

no, I just converted songs from my normal library and it worked like a charm

How do u make the song 30 sec long?

Every thing worked fine. The file with extension m4r was in the ringtone tap of itunes and it synced in the iphone ringtones (it was there), but when I went to find it in the phone, it was not in the list of ringtones?? How do I find it???

this is a mess guys. i wouldnt mind buying an itunes song and making it a ringtone, but i bought a song by a band called "Oh, Sleeper," and it says its unable to be made into a ringtone. if i get this down, apple im going to have tons of free ringtones , and shove em up your bum.

hey i dont have anything in my menu that says showin finder mine says show in windows explorer..please help thanks

sorry but the newest version od itunes 8.????? has figured out your hack and unless the song is bought from itunes it wont upload it to the phone im guessing that it looks at the purchase date

I dunno... I'm using iTunes 8.2 and it works just fine.

update i found the problem make sure your file sstarts with a letter no *&^%$#@!"' no char or it will not show up in the phone

Thanx, that worked like a charm

Hey,

Everything seems to work fine, but when I tried to look for the songs in the phone settings they don't seem to exist... does not let me check the : Selected Ringtones...
Let me know..

Like he said above. Only letters. I found out that numbers or even a period make it not show up.

i got the same problem. I cant find my ringtone in my iphone.
please give me some advises

Hello, I did follow your procedure to create ring tones for my new iPhone G3, but to no avail. I picked up an extract of a song I like in mp3 format, converted it to AAC as suggested, selected the AAC version and changed the extension from m4a to m4r and then the song appears with ringtone in tje column kind, but not as a possible ring tone when I try to sync the iPhone... what did I do wrong? Also, I cannot move the song in iTune 8 from the library Music to that name rintones. Thanks for any advice.

Hi
I followed your instructions and can see the file in the ringtones section on iTunes and it is present in the iTunes ringtone folder along with my others (created this way) but now my iPhone will not sync the new ringtones - any suggestions?

when i chane the files i can see them under the ringtones folder in the library but not in the ipos sync options what can i do to fix this?

I've tried all these techniques multiple times and even placed the song in the ringtones folder under itunes, as well as trying to drag and drop in itunes... nothing works. Changed the extensions from a to r and back again, as well as changing the names so it's short, only characters without numbers or symbols... anything else? nothings showing up in itunes when i open it up. i have tons of songs, and i only want one song as a ringtone... what the frick??

Worked fine for me, but be sure to select "ringtones' on the left side of itunes instead of 'music." That threw me for a few minutes. =P

how I can do that in window vista?

Not working at all... I'm following the instructions but with no luck.

exactly, it either doesent work with vista or doesent work with itunes 8
HELP AHHH!

I am BEYOND grateful to you for this!! Thanks SO much and I have passed your article on to many iPhone friends. It's UNBELIEVABLE that the Apple-fascists (and I did not believe that until I bought my iPhone - having used Macs all my life) want you to pay AGAIN for ringtones of songs you've already bought. So you saved a lotta cheddar for a lotta people. You are wonderful and I hope great things come back to you.

THIS IS GREAT THANKS!!

Hi, This doesn't sinc the ringtones with the phone...

nice post, this really going to add a new feature into my iphone. I was already wondering, for how long m gonna listen to these simple tones. I'm already working on my mp3, will update you in a moment

I got an apple protected song as a ringtone. Here's what I did:
1. Burn song to a cd
2. Import the cd as MP3
3. Drag the song to audion or editing software
4. Edit the song to the tone you want
5. Export to mp3 and burn it on a disc
6. Change itunes import settings to AAC encoder and import song
7. Find the file, change extension to .m4r and move it to the desktop, remove the imported AAC file to the trash.
8. Drag .m4r to itunes

For me itunes 8 did not recognise the file(XX.m4r - as created above) as ringtone. So I uninstalled itunes8, installed itunes 7.4, opened itunes. It recognised the ringtones and I can see them in the ringtones section. But this version doesn't support iphone. So, with out closing current itunes window, I upgraded it to itunes 8.2 and then the ringtones were still there. :D And when it got upgraded to 8.2, it detected iphone. up on going to ringtones tab for iphone, I saw the ringtones there too. :)

Thank You guys... Its a great help for me :)

Hello,can someone help me....
I did everything that you said,the songs appear in the ringtones tab in my itunes library but when i connect the iphone and go to the ringtones tab in the iphone doesnt appear any songs,so i dont even have the option to sync them.
Is thats because the songs are protected? I mean,i just took any song from my itunes music and transformed to m4r....

Hope you can help me!

Thanks!

Thank you for your blog.

I recorded a specific 30 second piece (mp3) to use as a ring tone, only to discover that I wasn't allowed to make a ringtone from it!

Following the lead here, I rerecorded it but encoded this time in AAC, transfered the file from the recording program (Audio Hijack Pro) to the desktop and changed the extention from .m4a to .m4r. Dragged and dropped the file into the iTunes library, voila, iTunes put it in ringtones. Synced my phone, and it imported. Thanks again.

Still can't do this. Tried the ringtone website which works fine, but can't import into the ringtone folder of iTunes. This is immensly frustrating!! Does this only work in the US? Has anyone managed this in the UK?

Awesome thanks!!

I had the same problem as many of the above commenters where I would convert the file, sync with iPhone and it wouldn't appear on my iPhone.

What worked for me was to crop the music file to around 30 seconds or less. You can do this by using the "Get Info" option in iTunes, clicking on the "Options" tab, and setting a start and end time. Then when you convert to AAC, it will create a much smaller file using the selected time frame.

FYI: I'm on Vista, using iTunes 8.1. Hope this helps!

As stupid as I feel writing this... I feel the need to confess that although I am fairly tech savvy and a very experienced Mac user, it took me almost an hour of trying different variations of the above instructions before figuring out that I did not have "Sync Ringtones" box checked in the iPhone preference pane.... (idiot).

For anyone who doesn't know, it is in itunes.

1. Plug in iPhone.
2. Open iTunes.
3. In the "Devices" list on the left hand column, click iPhone.
4. Select the "Ringtones" tab near the top of the window.
5. Check "Sync Ringtones" box.

Thanks to everyone else that posted instructions!!!

Thanks, Jeff. Great information.

Thanx guys this is awesome

but if you find yourself only getting the the start of the c=song as your tone

1. select file (listen and make note on the times when you want tone to start and end

2. secondary (right) click the file select preferances

3. goto option and select start and finish time (fine tune it to hundredths of a sec if needed select ok

4. secondary (right) click the file again and convert to AAC format (this will only convert the time frame you have selected

5. follow the above guide to finish the ringtone

6. Enjoy new custom tones

I successfully converted it into a .m4r file, but I dont seem to have a ringtones folder in my itunes...I have the latest version of itunes...when i search the file in finder it's listed as a "ringtone" but there is no ringtone folder in my itunes... any help would be appreciated, thanks...

Jackson, go to Preferences->General and select the ringtones button

ye i can create an AAC version of the song i want but when i find it in finder, there isnt no "get info" what do i do?

I can't drag it back to iTunes! Help! Help Help! PLEeeeease!

neither can I

I am a nerd.
I made this work!!!
Thank you... :o)

Ditto.. it works even with 8.1.1.10. but the length of the piece is the key for it to show up in the list for iPhone

steps are:

1- in preferences, make sure you checked the ringtones.
2- plug your phone in and click on it, make sure you select ringtones to be synchronized.

3- select a song you want.
4- right click on the song (windows, not sure about mac) and Create AAC version.
5- the AAC version will be created right there. go into get info menu, clear all song attributes and rename the song. remember which folder this was in.
6- the song will now show up in recently added list (i used wttj as a name for welcome to the jungle for instance.)
7- on the newly created AAC format song, which you named to a name that you can distinguish from the original hopefully, go to get info and select options. change the start and end times. close with OK, save, whatever.
8- when you play this the song will only play the range you want. iTunes has a bug that it still will show the original length of the song in the time column. no worries. make sure your start and end times are what you want. MAKE SURE IT IS LESS THAN 40 seconds. otherwise it won't show in the synch to the phone list, although it shows up in ringtones.
9-if you really want to make the time column correct too, once you are absolutely sure, do the create AAC version step above once more. the newly created (hopefully new name) file will show the length you put there.
10-now using tricks above for mac, or PC, or by simply using a command prompt for a PC, just rename the extension on the file you want to .m4r (it should be .m4a) at this point.
11- in the explorer in windows, this file is now showing as a ringtone and has a different icon.
12- click on the ringtones folder under library in iTunes, drag drop the new .m4r extension file into this area. the file will be automagically moved from where you had it to music/ringtones folder (as mentioned above) the music folder location is in your preferences.
13- now, if you did all of this right, when you click on your phone and to ringtones tab, you should see the file's name (the new name you gave) in the ringtones list. when you sync it will show up on your phone under custom.

Also check out this link, it has similar information. I combined from here and from this link to get things to work.
http://lifehacker.com/334073/create-custom-ipho...

thank you web... thank you...

Doesn't work for me. I have itunes 8.2 and it will not let me drag or import any file with mr4 extension and m4a will not show up in rintones. Neither will show up in ringtones even if I drop them in the ringtones folder in explorer. I've tried everything. Itunes 8.2 WILL NOT LET ME DO IT. What a bunch of CRAP

Everything here was very helpful, however I have 2 problems.
1. I do not have a Ringtone folder in the iTunes one to drag the m4r files; but this is not the biggest problem, 'cause I can drag it into the iTunes with the iPhone plugged in;
2. The problem is that I have made several m4r files that I drag in to the Ringtone section of the iTunes, syncs the iPhone but I have the same ringtone repeated the same amount of m4r files I dragged in, let's say I created 5 different ringtones different names and everthing, after I drag them to ringtones and syncs with the iPhone, one of those songs repeats 5 times, I don't have 5 different ones, I only have one repeated 5 times,

What can I do, what am I doing wrong? Thanks for any advise

how to creat the rington in 8.1.1 version

I neeed the current 8.2 version of i tunes to get the new update for my phone. Does anyone know how this will effect the ability to make free ringtones?

I used the suggestion I found on another forum: USE GARAGEBAND. most of you should have this. Open Media, find the song you like and drag it into Garageband, select Share, Save Ringtone to iTunes. If song is longer than 40 seconds, it will warn you that you need to trim it (opens a scale that sets proper ringtone length). Trim it, do the Share steps again, and bam! you have a new ringtone that is the right size.

iTunes 8.2, by the way

pz

thanks so much for this - I have been trying to do this for ages and the Garageband option worked for me.
Iona.

Mister thank you so much. This is the only thing that worked for it. I appreciate it. Coming from a G1 where I could do anything I wanted, this was a little frustrating. But it works fine now. You RULE!!!

Excellent! Perfect! Thanks!

this was a grate help and the coment below explaning how to convert an exicting file to a AAC file helped alot :D :D :D

I did this in Garage band, but if forced me to trip the song to 8 seconds in order to send it to itunes ringtones - any ideas on this? Using the new 3GS.

Unfortunately all ringtones have to be no longer than 40 sec

What a waste of time, all worked fine for me but while the hell cant they just let you drag a file into the ringtone tab and let u use it that way, every single thing to do with itunes is a pain in the ass! thanks for the information tho, worked a treat for me

You have to make the song 30 seconds or less for it to work. Under: File – Get Info – Options tab, change the start and stop times to make it 30 seconds or less BEFORE you make the AAC file. Then when you convert it to AAC, you'll see that the clip is 30 seconds or less. After you've made the AAC file, don't forget to go back to the original file and remove the start and stop times, then follow the above instructions. I like to drag the AAC file to my desktop before I change it to .m4r and then I delete the AAC file from iTunes before I drag the .m4r file back into the Ringtones window.

Super helpful, it worked great for me. Thank you very much for sharing this info ...

yeah this doesn't work, I have a PC and when I edit the song, I convert the ringtone to AAC. Then I double click it on my desktop and it gets added to iTunes, but not to the ringtone section, it gets put back in the My Library. Any ideas on how to get it to go to the ringtones section?

I've followed your steps and still get no where.
When I go to my iPhone and the Ringtones tab nothing even shows up for me to Sync.

1. Turn iTunes Application. First make sure in iTunes > Preferences > Import Settings > Import Using > AAC Encoder.
2. Then in iTunes select the song or music you want to make in to ringtones. (I'm using iTunes 8.2)
3. After selecting the song. go to File > get info. Or Command "i"
then on the option tab keep start time 0.00 and end time 30.00 or less.
(the file has to be 30 seconds or less)
Or
On Mac computers, you can also edit song on Garage Band application to customize the way you want as long as it's 30 second or less then "share song to iTunes.
4. Then on the selected song go to Advanced > Create AAC Version
This will make a duplicate of the file 30 seconds or less.
Note: make sure you go back to the original song and in info change the end time
back to original.
5. Drag your new edited song to your desktop. (You are very close)
6. On the desktop select the music file this should be a .m4a file. command "i" once more and on the pop up window click the "Name & Extension: Tab.
You will see song name .m4a file change the extension to .m4r. then click the triangle tab or click on the desktop to deselect. A pop up window will appear asking you if you are sure that you want to change file extension name.
choose .m4r.
7. In iTunes go to your Ringtones folder probably the 7th one from the top left.
and drag your song.m4r file there from the desktop.
8.Connect your iPhone to your computer. when it shows on iTunes go to Ringtones tab. make sure to put a check mark on Sync ringtones. Click on Selected ringtones you will see your song or songs you converted to ringtones there.
After that click Apply and let it Sync.
9. Now on your iPhone Settings > Sounds > Ringtone > choose your ringtone
Viola! you have your custom made ringtones. Your mom will be proud! Enjoy!

Just did this with my new iPhone on the latest version of iTunes.
Worked like a charm.

Thankyou! :D

It says the ringtone is on my phone but when i go to sounds ringtone its not there

I am not able to see the convert to AAC. I am using windows xp, anyone know why?

I am using the Iphone 3G and Itunes 9.0 on Windows Vista

WOW! I tried and tried but could not figure out how to change formats!!! My screen looked NOTHING like the windows shown here. I found a website that explains it differently and it worked for me! Yayyyy!

Here's the link. Also, one step that is missing that unlocked the whole process for me was located in one of the comments... I'll copy and paste that first. Good luck! And I am pretty non-technical and brand new to itunes and I figured it out, so I'm sure you will too. :)

FIRST - Go to Control Panel.........dbl click on Folder options........click View tab...........uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types"............ (This allows you to see what kind of file it is and be able to change it).

http://www.ehow.com/how_2160460_custom-iphone-r...

Also, after step 10, just click and drag the clipped song onto your desktop. From there you can right click it and rename it changing only the end part. This is easier than doing steps 11-13.

Hope this helps some of you that were not being able to change it in Vista or with the new Itunes.

it works but when I sync ringtones I lose all my songs in my iphone .

Ok everyone. Windows Vista, and iTunes 9.

First, get yourself an audio converter that can convert between m4a and mp3. (there are many free ones out there, try download.com)

Next, get yourself an audio editing software (ex. Audacity, again download.com)

Next, make sure you can change file extentions on your files. many ppl have already posted how to do this so i wont.

Next, find the song you want and open it in your audio editor and crop off approx 30sec of the part you like. If you have a good editor it will be able to export to m4a if not then just export your selection to mp3.

Next, convert the piece of your song that you exported from mp3 to m4a using the audio converter.

Next, rename the converted piece of your song so that its filename beguins with letters, no charachters or numbers, and change the file extention to m4r. your pc will automatically recognize it as a ringtone file type.

Next, if there's no Ringtones folder in your iTunes/Media folder then just create one make sure you spell it correctly, then put the file in there.

Next, open iTunes and make sure you SIGN OUT of iTunes Store (on the top menu bar of iTunes go to Store then Sign Out) once youre signed out drag and drop your file from the Ringtones folder into iTunes, anywhere in your Music Library screen, iTunes will recognize it as a ringtone.

Next, connect your phone, make sure you've selected Manually manage my music and videos on the bottom of the Summary screen. then go to the Ringtones tab and select your file and sync.

Next, without disconecting your phone from the pc, go into your phone and make sure you can see the ringtone in settings sounds rintones, it should be under custom. set it as a ringone and then eject your phone from you pc.

Next, drive by the Apple HQ while sticking a giant middle finger out the window and laughing b/c you can now have watever song you want as your ringtone for free. Its not enough that the iPhone and your plan/data usage charges, and your iTunes Store purchases cost so much, but you gotta pay to enjoy what you bought and is by all means entirely yours.

my itunes doesnt let me convert it, only lets me convert it to MP3 how can i make that work for me ?

easiest way I found is to use www.mobilespin.net free ringtone tool

I found another cool site to make ringtones:

http://iphone.angarka.ru

after i have converted it to aac version the system wont allow me to edit the path or the m4 what can i do?