Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

goodfidelity

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 15, 2015
201
31
I just spent 1 hour trying to download and install usable text tones, small sounds that can be used for messages on the iPhone.

However, converting them from VAW to M4A and AAC does not help, and iTunes will not accept them.

If i do manual sync and add them as music, i still cannot add them as tones for text messages on the phone.

How do i change the sound / tone for the messaging app if i dont want anyone of the horrible sounds that comes standard?

Man this is very frustrating..
 
Last edited:

goodfidelity

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 15, 2015
201
31
Well. All of the apple message tones are really horrible to listen to, and same goes with the alarm tones.

Ring tones i dont mind very much, but sure there would be nice to change those to.

I want a nice, calm, relaxing klick sound or something similar to whatsapps message sound on the PC. (they dont have same sound on the iPhone).

Apple has a portfolio of sounds that are basically noise, they are there to gain attention and they are in the frquency range of just that. For me, i have a silen surrounding and prefer just a tap or a klick sound.

The solution in your link involves garageband, i already have the soundfiles, i just want to transfer them to the phone.

and when trying to do so i get nothing but this:
Screen Shot 2023-03-26 at 10.35.01.png

There is a dotted circle on the left of the tone. And it will not transfer.
It is converted to correct format from wav. Seems to be something with the transfer that fails. Apple dont want to make this easy, because they sell ringtones and make money from that. Basically they have to make it stupid-silly dificult to import your own.

Should be just drag and drop, it is actually 2023 now.

Anyone seen this problem or managed to make their own ringtones for messages?
 

goodfidelity

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 15, 2015
201
31
Managed to solve it after really alot of hassle..

Seems apple cant handle some symbols in file names, even if we are now in 2023..

1. For anyone who wants custom sounds for messages, just go to this site:


2. Then go to this site and convert the WAV to ACC or M4A:
(som of the sites offer M4A download, then you dont need this site for conversion)

3. After that RENAME THEM TO SHORT NAMES, AND MAKE SURE TO PUT .M4R (R for ringtone) in end... And then use itunes and drag->drop them in to the tones after connecting and selecting your phone in iTunes. Then press the SYNC. Might be you need to have manual sync on, just try different way if it doesn't work.

4. They will now appear under settings in the iPhone, if you go to 1. Setting - 2.Sound and haptic - 3.SMS messages

5. Be happy that you now can avoid the horrible noises from the original sounds in iOS. You can get any nice, quite, relaxing or soft sounds that suits your needs. There are many websites for sounds, the ones in the links are just example. Some offer m4a download straight, those are the easiest. Remember to rename the files to something short and simple, otherwise it wont work.


Screen Shot 2023-03-26 at 10.46.40.png

Screen Shot 2023-03-26 at 10.47.02.png

Screen Shot 2023-03-26 at 10.46.29.png

IMG_0090.PNG
 

jetsam

macrumors 6502a
Jul 28, 2015
946
711

goodfidelity

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 15, 2015
201
31
ill try that one also, if you are going to get wet you might as well go swimming.
 

Love-hate 🍏 relationship

macrumors 68040
Sep 19, 2021
3,054
3,233

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,512
28,210
Interesting didn’t know people were still into custom ringtones. Thought that fad died off in early 2000s.
Because everyone is now okay with their phone sounding exactly like all the other iPhones out there, right? ;)

It's a head shaking moment watching an iPhone ringing inside a coffee shop. Because no one bothers to change their ring tone, you can see multiple people grabbing their phones to check if it's ringing or not. Gotta love herd mentality.

:rolleyes:
 

Pierre535

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2017
132
111
Years ago I created a ring tone from the introductory music to Star Wars. Still use it. Get lots of stares when my phone rings in public.
 
  • Like
Reactions: genexx

rambo47

macrumors 65816
Oct 3, 2010
1,360
983
Denville, NJ
My basic ringtone is 30 seconds of silence. If you're in my contacts list I assign a custom ringtone - usually Scotland the Brave. Nothing gets my attention like bagpipes!

I have custom alert tones for email and iMessages. For email it's HAL from 2001 saying, "There is a message for you." Freaks people out when they hear my iPhone talking to me. For iMessages I imported a bunch of the older BlackBerry alert tones. I assign the old Nextel chirp for work contacts. Nobody's phone sounds quite like mine. :)
 

akash.nu

macrumors G4
May 26, 2016
10,853
16,982
Because everyone is now okay with their phone sounding exactly like all the other iPhones out there, right? ;)

It's a head shaking moment watching an iPhone ringing inside a coffee shop. Because no one bothers to change their ring tone, you can see multiple people grabbing their phones to check if it's ringing or not. Gotta love herd mentality.

:rolleyes:

I think people just moved on from stuff like that. It’s a phone and it works. Mostly that’s what the majority deals with. In fact most just keep their phone in silence to be honest. I hardly hear ringtones in public at all.
 

eicca

Suspended
Oct 23, 2014
1,773
3,603
Years ago I created a ring tone from the introductory music to Star Wars. Still use it. Get lots of stares when my phone rings in public.
Heh. My ringtone is the klaxon on the Death Star/Star Destroyers. Most people ignore it. A few recognize it and get really excited.
 
  • Like
Reactions: eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,512
28,210
I think people just moved on from stuff like that. It’s a phone and it works. Mostly that’s what the majority deals with. In fact most just keep their phone in silence to be honest. I hardly hear ringtones in public at all.
Well, it would just prove that I am once again an exception. The only time I put my phone on silent is for appointments/meetings. And personally, I hate the stock ringtones.

My iPhone is set up with the personalized ringtones I was using with my HTC Touch Pro in 2009, plus the T-Mobile jingle as my stock ringer (for people not in my contacts).

Fortunately, the last time I had to set any of that up was in 2015 when I moved from Sprint to T-Mobile. Its carried over to each phone from that point.
 
  • Like
Reactions: genexx

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
29,512
28,210
My basic ringtone is 30 seconds of silence. If you're in my contacts list I assign a custom ringtone - usually Scotland the Brave. Nothing gets my attention like bagpipes!

I have custom alert tones for email and iMessages. For email it's HAL from 2001 saying, "There is a message for you." Freaks people out when they hear my iPhone talking to me. For iMessages I imported a bunch of the older BlackBerry alert tones. I assign the old Nextel chirp for work contacts. Nobody's phone sounds quite like mine. :)
I have the T-Mobile jingle as my stock ringer. Contacts get an Old Phone ringer I've been using since 2009.

Depending on email account, the new mail tones are either from Entourage X, Entourage 2004 or Entourage 2008. Extracting those from the Microsoft Soundsets took some work.

My alarm is some bells from an alarm app I was using on my HTC Touch Pro (2009) and my new message sound is the same as that from the HTC Diamond. Most of the rest of the sounds are all from an HTC Diamond/Touch Pro soundpack.

I got used to those sounds and they aren't Apple. Some of them are really good too I think. :D
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: rambo47

kanga1622

macrumors regular
Sep 21, 2016
181
117
My basic ringtone is 30 seconds of silence. If you're in my contacts list I assign a custom ringtone - usually Scotland the Brave. Nothing gets my attention like bagpipes!

I have custom alert tones for email and iMessages. For email it's HAL from 2001 saying, "There is a message for you." Freaks people out when they hear my iPhone talking to me. For iMessages I imported a bunch of the older BlackBerry alert tones. I assign the old Nextel chirp for work contacts. Nobody's phone sounds quite like mine. :)

You sound like me. Everyone in my phone that I care about has their own ringtone and some even have different call vs text tones. I can tell from across the room who is trying to reach me. If it is my generic ringtone song then I don’t worry about answering.
 

ndouglas

macrumors 6502a
Jun 1, 2022
713
623
I think people just moved on from stuff like that. It’s a phone and it works. Mostly that’s what the majority deals with. In fact most just keep their phone in silence to be honest. I hardly hear ringtones in public at all.
Agree, 15+ years ago when custom ringtones were popular, people weren’t quite** as glued to their phones 24/7. Of course it had started, but nowadays everyone (myself included) checks their phones much more often…. orders of magnitude more often… perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit…
and this is just my opinion of course…
but to OP’s issue, and the comments about people having same ringtones, the whole tone thing became obsolete long ago when it became inevitable for many, most people to be looking at their phones every 5 minutes (or seconds) anyway….

separate from that but semi-related, whether it’s Fitbit previously or Apple watch now, that’s another reason personally I never looked back from using sounds for alerts… A) I’m gonna see my phone 10-20 times a day anyway and I’ll get to someone’s call/text when I get to it, and B) for the infrequent occasions I want to be “on-call” it’ll buzz my watch discreetly.

Anyway, I do wish OP luck with the ringtone installation! I recall it being rather fun to explore that around 2006, 2007, and also difficult with iTunes and Garage Band etc., but it’s unlikely I’ll ever go back to using them myself.
 

Pro_the_legend

macrumors 6502
Jan 4, 2021
415
754
Take any audio file, trim it down to 40 seconds or less, convert it to .m4r via any of the online sites that pop up if you look up mp3 to m4r converter, connect your iPhone via USB to your Mac or PC. Drag and drop the converted m4r file to your iPhone which will show up in the sidebar of the finder (iTunes for windows) & viola, a ring tone will now show up under your phone's ringtone section.

Apple's selection of ring tones is rubbish. I've been using a custom ringtone & alert tone since iOS 5.
 
  • Like
Reactions: eyoungren

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
16,207
11,677
I have my own custom set of ringtones, some of which are quite beautiful melodies, all extracted from various anime-related songs. Fortunately, I still keep a copy of iTunes 12.6.5.3 on my PC and resist on updating it to the latest version, thus updating custom ringtone is still pretty easy. Plus, iCloud backup includes ringtone nowadays unlike before, meaning I don’t even need to reconfigure after a restore, quite convenient.

I have been looking to update them to add more ringtones but never got around to it. For the tools I use to create ringtones, I use GoldWave on Windows and Sound Studio on macOS.
 
  • Like
Reactions: eyoungren

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
16,207
11,677
Take any audio file, trim it down to 40 seconds or less, convert it to .m4r via any of the online sites that pop up if you look up mp3 to m4r converter, connect your iPhone via USB to your Mac or PC. Drag and drop the converted m4r file to your iPhone which will show up in the sidebar of the finder (iTunes for windows) & viola, a ring tone will now show up under your phone's ringtone section.

Apple's selection of ring tones is rubbish. I've been using a custom ringtone & alert tone since iOS 5.
Trim it down to 30s or less so the same ringtone can also be used for other notifications.

I don’t use stock ringtone myself and hasn‘t been doing so for quite some time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pro_the_legend

Pierre535

macrumors regular
Jun 6, 2017
132
111
Managed to solve it after really alot of hassle..

Seems apple cant handle some symbols in file names, even if we are now in 2023..

1. For anyone who wants custom sounds for messages, just go to this site:

2. Then go to this site and convert the WAV to ACC or M4A:
(som of the sites offer M4A download, then you dont need this site for conversion)

3. After that RENAME THEM TO SHORT NAMES, AND MAKE SURE TO PUT .M4R (R for ringtone) in end... And then use itunes and drag->drop them in to the tones after connecting and selecting your phone in iTunes. Then press the SYNC. Might be you need to have manual sync on, just try different way if it doesn't work.

4. They will now appear under settings in the iPhone, if you go to 1. Setting - 2.Sound and haptic - 3.SMS messages

5. Be happy that you now can avoid the horrible noises from the original sounds in iOS. You can get any nice, quite, relaxing or soft sounds that suits your needs. There are many websites for sounds, the ones in the links are just example. Some offer m4a download straight, those are the easiest. Remember to rename the files to something short and simple, otherwise it wont work.


View attachment 2178858

View attachment 2178859

View attachment 2178857

View attachment 2178860
Tried this procedure and others from doing a search, nothing worked. I was able to drop the M4r files onto the iPhone but they show up in music, none showed in ringtones. Used iMazing, seconds later all tones show up In ringtones.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jetsam
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.