iTunes 12.7 will not import my .m4r ringtones!

I chased this problem for hours. It looks like a bug to me. Here's what finally worked:

1. Navigate in the Finder window to select the .m4r file, choose Copy from the Edit Menu.
2. Navigate in iTunes to the device Tones panel, choose Paste from the Edit Menu.

I wish I could take credit, but I found this remedy in a closed discussion thread on this site. Not so much as an upvote!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4014286?answerId=32450152022#32450152022

The above worked for me when nothing else did on High Sierra 10.13.3, with iTunes 12.7.3.46. I hope it helps someone!

There were major changes in iTunes 12.7 -- see: Changes in the new iTunes - Apple Support

You can however still use iTunes to transfer custom ringtones to an iPhone: see the "Move ringtones from iTunes ..." section of Use tones on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Thanks, but nope, that's not it. The ringtone files appear in my phone's music library as "Songs" and they're perfectly playable, all 28 seconds of each of them. So they got into my phone just fine by the drag-and-drop function in iTunes, and they're playable. But they're not showing up in the visible "Tones" section of my phone in iTunes, and they're not available to add to a Contact as a ringtone or a text tone.

They're .m4r files, they're in my phone as Songs, but they're not recognized by iOS as ringtones. Friggin' Apple.

Perhaps not. I just replicated what I had done last week: I made 2 ringtones from an AAC purchased track that presumably has DRM protection. I then connected my phone to iTunes and synced it. I then copied the tracks from the ringtone app to my hard drive. It's a .m4r file. I changed the file association from the default "Groove Music" to "iTunes" for just ONE of the new ringtones, and doing so changed the file association for ALL of my .m4r files. So that tells me that the ringtone app creations ARE genuine .m4r files.

Then I went to iTunes, and I dragged the 2 new ringtone files into iTunes. They didn't go in successfully. However, they now are BOTH in my iPhone's music app, as 28-second-long playable music files (that is, I have 3 versions in my "Songs" library where I used to have just 1 version, the full purchased version). See attached picture file.

Additionally, one (but not both) of the 2 new ringtone files IS playable in iTunes by double-clicking on it. While it doesn't show up in my Music Library in iTunes - neither as a Song nor as a Tone - it does show up in iTunes as "Added in last week. In fact, both show up in the "Added in last week" section, although one was not synced. Again, see pic attached.

And one final note - I can play as a song one of the ringtones in my phone's Music Library, but when I try to play the other ringtone that appears in my phone's Music Library, I can't. Instead, I get the following screen:

Wanna see something quite interesting?

Simple copy the ring tone - you can use a keyboard shortcut - and than simply past it in you iTunes, preferably into your iphone Tones sidebar.

It worked for me after months looking for an answer.

Horrible.

What is the correct way be in "manually managed mode"?

I selected this and sync run and delete all from my iphone ... f*ck.

Why does run sync - this means automatically for me ... and not manually.

I tried doing that over and over again but my ringtones show up on the tones folder with the dotted circles around them but they dont show up on the phone even after synchronising it, any idea what the issue could be here?

Thanks jamzeze, sensible advice and it works just fine. Copy and Paste is the way to go! I am using an iMac running the latest version of High Sierra and iTunes V12.7.3.46 and a connected iPhone 8 running iOS V11.2.6. Copy the ringtone file on your desktop and then Paste it onto the highlighted portion of the sidebar (see above) - That's it - done.

Thanks, after reading all these pages I was loosing the will to live and your simple advice saved the day.

I used to add ringtone in iTunes 12.7.3 using the drag and drop method to the new tone page.

However, after update to iTunes 12.7.4, I got stuck into the "dotted circle" and the ringtone are not copying to the iPhone.

Any solution?

I've no experience with ringtones purchased from Apple or created with any other application other than iTunes in the way I've described in Create and manage ringtones in iTunes. I did find that at some point after updating to iOS 11, and possibly after syncing my device, that my custom tones stopped working. To fix that I removed them from the device, then added them back again. As for iTunes not reliably syncing content, or organizing it properly, yes, iTunes can be squirrely indeed.

tt2

Reboot the device. Try switching the device into manual managed mode. Try copy and paste instead of drag and drop. If running iTunes for Windows as admin try in regular mode. See Create and manage ringtones in iTunes for more.

tt2

Windows or Mac? Is there any possibility that the files aren't really .m4r, e.g. could they be called something like <name>.m4r.m4a where the .m4a at the end is hidden? Were they in AAC format before having the extension changed? Can you drag them into the regular iTunes library?

tt2

I'm having a similar problem. The file will not add to my library— when I double click, nothing happens. when I drag into the sidebar, nothing happens.

Finder identifies it as a ringtone, and QuickLook will play it.