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

iOS 26 Lets You Set Custom Ringtones Without Using GarageBand

FoxyKaye said:
I thought you could always do this by creating the M4A file you wanted as a ringtone, renaming the file extension to M4R, and dragging it onto the iPhone panel from Finder while your iPhone was connected to your Mac?

Oh.
Click to expand...
You could. But it was unreliable in my experience, especially in recent years after Apple switched from using iTunes to the Finder directly.

It's nice to finally have a way to do it directly on the phone without involving a computer.

Also hello fellow fuzzy face. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: FoxyKaye
I don't even know what my ringtone is. I can't remember the last time my phone was off silent.
 
Damn this is like waiting for the last two books of the Game of Thrones series. It’s been decades nobody cares anymore.
 
zorinlynx said:
Yeah. That's one thing that people who switched from Android complain about a lot. "What do you mean I have to do all this nonsense to set a ringtone?!"

And I completely nod my head in agreement; Apple either didn't realize people wanted this, or had some reason to prevent it.

Now we can finally put this idiocy to bed.
Click to expand...
I have never in my entire life wanted to make custom ring tones... Makes absolutely no sense to me and it will always just be left on silent.
 
justanthonylee said:
I have never in my entire life wanted to make custom ring tones... Makes absolutely no sense to me and it will always just be left on silent.
Click to expand...
Depends on your lifestyle I guess. If you have no kids, spouse, elder parents or work/customers/coworkers that may spontaneously call then the silent life is for you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JapanApple
B4U said:
Didn't we have the ability to do that way back when iTunes was still available on Mac?
Still have quite a few of them with me now.
Click to expand...
That method broke when iTunes split into the Music app I believe. Around the time I moved from iPhone 11 to 13 I lost a ton of custom tones made around 2014-2016, funny enough my 4th gen iPad mini still has them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: B4U
justanthonylee said:
I have never in my entire life wanted to make custom ring tones... Makes absolutely no sense to me and it will always just be left on silent.
Click to expand...
If you're at home and your phone isn't on your person, having a ringtone can help you know when someone is calling you.

In fact I get annoyed when I forget to take it off silent and I miss a call because my phone was on my desk and I was in the kitchen, etc.

(I'm not sure why this is such a confusing concept for some people? It was like, the original point of having phones ring? Do ya'll have your phones in your pocket 24/7 even at home?)
 
  • Like
Reactions: DefNotAnLLM and WarmWinterHat
urtules said:
I think I would still prefer to set it with GarageBand because you can trim there. But this will help people who are moving on from Android.
Click to expand...

You can do it all within iTunes/Music. No need for GarageBand or Audacity or other tools.

Select your track. Pick the start/end points in its "get info" page to trim it down to 30s or less. Then do a "Convert to AAC" from the menu bar. It will create a new track in your library containing your selected region.

Drag this new track from Music to the desktop, to make a copy of the file. Rename it from ".m4a" to ".m4r". Then drag/drop it onto your phone in the Finder (or in iTunes on an old Mac). And you're done.

Then you can delete your clipped file and reset the start/end points in iTunes/Music.

No need for any special software or changes to iOS.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WarmWinterHat
Entire human beings have been born and reached adulthood in less time than it took for Apple to add the few lines of code needed to enable this basic feature.
 
zorinlynx said:
THANK YOU, was that so hard, Apple?

Freaking 18 years later and you fix it so we don't have to do hacks to set custom ringtones.

Like, part of me is grateful but the other part is like... "Why did something so simple take this long!?" People have complained about this for years.
Click to expand...
Before they abandoned iTunes IIRC you just had to rename a suitable-length AAC M4A file to m4r and add it to iTunes, which was a pretty minor “hack”, so the gap isn’t that long
 
  • Like
Reactions: RealE
That’s so cool! /s

Just when everybody finally switched their phones to silent, they drop this. 15 years too late.
 
MacRumors said:


The dust is beginning to settle on iOS 26, but there is one more smaller improvement that we wanted to make sure that we highlighted: the ability to set custom ringtones on the iPhone without using the GarageBand app.

iOS-18.4-Ambient-Music-Feature.jpg

To set a custom ringtone on iOS 26, open the Files app and tap on an MP3 or M4A audio file that is less than 30 seconds long. Next, tap on the share button in the bottom-right corner of the screen, tap on More, and tap on Use as Ringtone. Then, that audio file will be listed as a ringtone option in the Settings app under Sounds & Haptics → Ringtone.

As noted by Macworld last week, the Use as Ringtone option also appears for audio files in select other apps, including Voice Memos. However, it is not possible to set Apple Music songs as custom ringtones for free, even with a subscription.

Apple continues to sell 30-second song ringtones for $1.29 each through the iTunes Store app on iOS 26, but this is a legacy feature.

iOS 26 is currently in beta.

Article Link: iOS 26 Lets You Set Custom Ringtones Without Using GarageBand
Click to expand...
I’ve been using that method for at least 2 years, nothing new for me
 
Finally, with custom ringtones in iOS 26, I’ll actually know when it’s my phone ringing—no more second-guessing in a room full of identical alerts. A small change, but a surprisingly welcome one.
 
Fantastic to see this. Should have been there ages ago. Glad that it is finally available and it should definitely make it easier to set a ringtone of choice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mganu
it only took 300MM of D&R and 14 years doing so!!

Or do you believe they were just trying to make more money with ringtones??...
 
Android is the best feature iPhone users could have, without Android, we would be charge 0,1USD each picture you take...
 
Something my Nokia candy phone could do in the early 2000s! It supported MP3, no length limit, and I had Smoke on the Water as my ring tone... Glad to see Apple is keeping up.
 
MacRumors said:


The dust is beginning to settle on iOS 26, but there is one more smaller improvement that we wanted to make sure that we highlighted: the ability to set custom ringtones on the iPhone without using the GarageBand app.

iOS-18.4-Ambient-Music-Feature.jpg

To set a custom ringtone on iOS 26, open the Files app and tap on an MP3 or M4A audio file that is less than 30 seconds long. Next, tap on the share button in the bottom-right corner of the screen, tap on More, and tap on Use as Ringtone. Then, that audio file will be listed as a ringtone option in the Settings app under Sounds & Haptics → Ringtone.

As noted by Macworld last week, the Use as Ringtone option also appears for audio files in select other apps, including Voice Memos. However, it is not possible to set Apple Music songs as custom ringtones for free, even with a subscription.

Apple continues to sell 30-second song ringtones for $1.29 each through the iTunes Store app on iOS 26, but this is a legacy feature.

iOS 26 is currently in beta.

Article Link: iOS 26 Lets You Set Custom Ringtones Without Using GarageBand
Click to expand...
Some of these new updates make no sense to me like am like “they didn’t already exist”????? It’s wild.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back