How to transfer custom ringtone with iTunes 12.7?
Apple support article says to transfer it manually "if you have ringtone in your iTunes". However in iTunes 12.7 there are no ringtones anymore and I can't find a way to transfer custom ringtone my to iPhone.
The iTunes software no longer manages tones for you, but it still lets you inspect which tones are in your phone (see screenshot above).
I got my custom ringtones back by doing the following:
1) Using finder, locate the files in the folder "Tones" under where my iTunes media library is stored
2) From within iTunes, with my iPhone connected, select "Tones" under "On My Device" (screenshot above)
3) Drag the files from (1) onto the blank area in (2) to copy them onto the phone:
4) Click "sync".
5) From my iPhone, choose Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone: confirm that the missing custom ringtones have been restored and that my default ringtone has been automatically set back to the (now no longer missing) custom ringtone it used to have.
Note: My phone is using iOS 10.3.3; I haven't installed iOS 11 yet. But I had the same problem with "where did my custom ringtones go?" the moment I upgraded iTunes to 12.7.
Get your song onto your songs list on the iTunes library; right click on it and go to song info, then choose the options tab and make the length of the ringtone 30 seconds or less (or the song won't be recognised as a ringtone), starting from wherever you like (or just change the start to 0:00 and stop to 0:30). Then close the song info; select the song and choose the "File" tab on the top left corner of iTunes.
Choose convert>convert to AAC. Once that is done, select the AAC song (there will be 2 files of the song check which one is AAC by right clicking one of them and selecting song info>about song) and right click on it. Choose 'Open in Finder' (for MacOS users) or 'Open in Windows Explorer' (for Windows users). Once the song is located in Finder/Windows Explorer, rename the song from "song name here".m4a to "song name here".m4r
Now make sure your device is connected and is visible in the iTunes application. Open the 'Tones' section, and drag the song with the m4r extension into it. If this step is done, the process is successful.
Open your device's 'Sounds' tab in the settings, and go to 'ringtones'. Your recently added song would appear there as a regular ringtone if the process is done right. If not, reply your query and I shall try to resolve it ASAP.
Note: The above procedure was successfully executed using iTunes v12.7.2.60 with an iPhone 6S. Hope that helps!
I’m successful with everything UNTIL it comes time to drag and drop it into tones, the system will not let me do it. i understand that it may not be possible to create custom ringtones out of those I purchased from Apple so went back and chose a Metallica song that I KNOW I transferred into iTunes from my CD, and I was able to create everything as you said UNTIL it came time to drag and drop and cannot do it. This shouldn’t be that hard, I’ve had my ringtone since the first iPhone, it plays under Sounds and Haptics but if I select it the ringer will use the Apple default instead. Thanks so much for getting me this far, better than I’d done before for sure! Would really love to solve this and not sure why something was changed in 11.0 that has caused me to spend this much time with it. FYI, these songs play in iTunes so are in my library. When I created the new Metallica file, it plays in iTunes as well for exactly 30 seconds, Argh!
I should’ve been more clear, won’t do that either. when I open TONES and try to drag and drop I do see a 🚫 when I attempt to drag it to my list on the right side but when I bring it to the word TONES on the left side, I get a blue “link” but it never shows up in my tones. Grrr! Thanks for all your help here, I haven’t given up! I even saw an option to send it to my iPhone X so tried that but no luck. To be expected though, it wouldn’t know where to go! Oh well! You ROCK, thanks!
I'm assuming you're using a Mac. Go to the file in the finder on your Mac, select it, then hit copy. Then go back to iTunes, and click on the tones icon under your phone, and right click and choose past. The ringtone will immediately show up on your phone. I just did it, worked perfect.
this actually worked. thanks. it sounded complicated but once i started the steps i was able to figure each one out. One exception: I still have the non-functioning version of the ringtone on my iPhone and can't seem to make it go away.
Assuming you've put the device in manually managed mode and then tried and failed to delete the unwanted version the only other thought that comes to mind is to use iFunBox to poke around in the file system of the device. In iFunBox try Toolbox > User File System > iPod_Control > Ringtones. Any custom tones on your device should probably show up there with random 4 letter file names and a .m4r extension. Deleting these should clear all custom tones from the list on the device, and you can then add back what you want using iTunes.
tt2
I just tried this - and it did not work.
When this first happened, I had multiple ringtones and was able to get them to new iphone ios 11 with instructions from many months ago: basically dragging the m4r file to itunes - TO THE DEVICE IN SIDEBAR, it boxed the area when dragged, and took the ringtone. Now that is not working either. Any thoughts?
I like most of you have tried for 2 or 3 hours without success, tonight it finally worked. Mine was a very old ringtone I changed the file .4mr, as I had before, but when I dragged and held it over my iPhone 7 for a few seconds I got a message that the duration was too long.
I shortened it to 30 seconds in iTunes using 'ctrl click info' in the options box. I dragged a copy to my desktop, then dragged this onto my device symbol and synched my phone before unplugging. Everything worked when I selected the ringtone for 'Open' in Sounds & Haptics in settings on my phone.
Its imperative the ringtone is only 30 seconds or less. Hope this helps.
Hello.
By the way, did you happen to find out how to delete a ringtone that is already on my device now that it cannot be managed with iTunes?
Never mind, I did find out how to do this
My tones appear under the directory but even when selected on my phone, they are not working. I hear a default ringtone when receiving a call.
Nope, this is what I see when I plug my phone into the mac, but my ringtones don't show on the phone .
It's a bug in iOS 11. Please report it here (easy-peasy, short, simple online form):
How to get custom ringtone onto iOS 11 device?
