iTunes 7.4’s free ringtone rigamarole

If you’re looking for yet another way to get custom ringtones on your iPhone, the folks at Mac Rumors have discovered a little workaround for iTunes 7.4. Here’s the scoop: change an AAC file’s suffix from .m4a to .m4r in the Finder, and then double click it, and iTunes ought to import it and let you sync it to your iPhone.

I tried this out on my own computer, and while it does work, there are some limitations you should be aware of. First up: make sure your iPhone is updated to the latest firmware. It didn’t work for me on 1.0.1, but that may also be because of other hacks and ringtones that I’d installed from other means. Once I updated to 1.0.2, it worked swimmingly. Next, make sure the AAC file doesn’t already exist in your iTunes library. Otherwise, it’ll just try and play the song that’s already there. If it does, remove it by hitting delete (you can keep the files where they are, and reimport them later). Also, try as I might, I couldn’t get it to work with protected AAC files from the iTunes Store; it just added them to my library and started to play them instead. MP3 files are right out.

Chances are that this is a hole that Apple simply missed when adding the ringtone functionality into iTunes, so I’d be unsurprised to see it plugged in a subsequent update. But for now, if you’re willing to go through the dance, you can make all the ringtones you like.

Update: It appears that iTunes 7.4.1 sort of breaks this hack. But, in fact, if you go into your iTunes Library/Ringtones folder and change the suffix on any ringtones you’ve imported back to .m4a from .m4r, you’ll find that they’ll work again. So, to keep making free ringtones, follow the steps above, and then change the suffix back to .m4a.

Category: Software, Tips & Troubleshooting

Posted by Dan Moren on Sep 7 2007, 4:45 PM ET

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