Cannot access text tones from ringtone list on iOS17

Your text tones haven’t been erased by the iOS 17 upgrade process. They’re still in your iPhone, but inaccessible.

There are two (relatively) simple way to mitigate this:

You can use GarageBand to create a custom tone (there are plenty of tutorials online which explain how to do this), and assign it as a text tone via that workflow. Note that you won’t be able to access the custom tone after the fact through the usual means, i.e., it will not appear in the menu of text tones. Therefore, don’t change the text tone to something else after you do this, because you won’t be able to set it back to your custom tone without repeating the entire GarageBand process again.

The other method is, in my opinion, even easier, but involves modifying a plist on your iPhone. To do this, you need certain utilities which run on your MacOS or Windows computer. Once modified, all your text tones will appear and function as expected.

Taking all of this into consideration, I suspect this is a bug in iOS 17. For one thing, custom ringtones still work. The GarageBand method to create and assign custom text tones still works also, it’s just that you can’t select those tones in the iOS menus after the fact. Also the nature of the fix via the plist modification is essentially correcting the omission of a field which identifies each tone as either a text tone or a ringtone.

britne288 wrote:

I just came to say it’s 11/09/2023 and this is still a problem … I need this fixed ASAP !

And what happened when you updated your iPhone to iOS 17.1 a week or so ago? For just about everyone, this was fixed in that update. And the latest update is iOS 17.1.1

mrklytt wrote:

I just looked at the fixes listed under 17.1 and it’s there. I’m downloading it now, will report back with results

It has been fixed. This has been confirmed.

Yup, that's the current state of affairs. Apple doesn't read here in this user-to-user forum for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

As iOS 17 may not have been added to the dropdown menu yet, be sure to include that information in the text box.

Yes I have the same problem it is a bug. The tones I want for my text and email are all in the ringtone list and cannot be moved. I have spoken to apple support and high tech only to be told the same, the engineers know about this problem and it should resolve itself in a future patch update but no idea when, so at the moment I am stuck with tones that I do not want. Sort this out soon

MK-1968 wrote:

Same problem. Unable to access previously downloaded or newly downloaded tones in text tones

Unless and until Apple makes a change, everyone has that problem. You can let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

Hello ~ Have you tried updating your iPhone to iOS 17.1.1?

~Katana-San~

Spent an hour on the phone with Apple Tech Support for this issue today. The tech I worked with confirmed the oddity of the problem we are having, then transferred me to “advanced” tech support who did the same. The advanced tech told me that Apple engineers are aware of the problem and are (ostensibly) working on a solution. But still no solution to date.

I just looked at the fixes listed under 17.1 and it’s there. I’m downloading it now, will report back with results

Whether this was intentional or an oversight to remove doorbell, we wouldn't know. But since this text tone was important to you, you should tell Apple by providing feedback here --> Feedback - iPhone - Apple

And tell all your friends! The more people who complain, the more likely it is that Apple will make a change.

I just came to say it’s 11/09/2023 and this is still a problem … I need this fixed ASAP !

Grammadeb712 wrote:

Cannot access text homes from my ringtone list on my iPhone 13 Pro Max

That is correct. Your phone is functioning as Apple appears to have intended.

There was a rather lengthy thread on this forum about the second method which strangely disappeared in its entirely yesterday evening, so perhaps discussing such things here is prohibited. You’d think that the community helping each other to temporize an iOS 17 deficiency until such time that Apple patches it would be welcome and appreciated… but then again, maybe not.

I have the same issue. The doorbell tone was working fine (on 17.1) until I updated to 17.1.1. Now it’s not accessible under the selection for text message notification tones. Matter of fact it defaulted to “none” and I was missing text message notifications as a result. (Not even getting a visual notification under my locked notification screen). Very annoying!

the current selection of available tones are unacceptable for my needs.