Step-by-step: free make custom iPhone ringtones on Mac

Published on May 18 2012 by Victor

Launch iTunes 10
Find and select the song you want to make a ringtone out of in iTunes 10
Right-click on the song name and select 'Get Info', then click on the Options tab
Select the playback period of the song that you want to ringtone to be, make sure it's 30 seconds

make ringtone itunes 10

Now click "OK" and then right click on the song again, and select "Create AAC version" to create a new version of the song with the 30 second interval you specified
Locate this newly created 30 second clip in iTunes (at the top of the playlist if you search by 'date added' and right click on the file and then select "Show in Finder"
Now in the Finder (or Windows explorer, the process is the same for Windows iTunes 10), rename the file extension from .m4a to .m4r

m4r ringtone file itunes 10

Accept the file extension change to .m4r
Now back in iTunes remove the file from the playlist (do NOT move to Trash, select 'keep file') and then re-import the file into iTunes 10 by double clicking the .m4r file within the Finder or Windows
The file will now be added back into iTunes as a ringtone and you can do what you want with it

itunes 10 ringtone file

Sync it with your iPhone and assign to contacts as usual with custom iPhone ringtones