Free iPhone Ringtones Revisited

Back in 2008 we created a huge set of 250 free iPhone ringtones for people to download and use on their iPhones. The page has been updated to put all of the ringtones in one huge list, make it easy to preview the tones, and also easier to install them directly on your iPhone. Check out this tutorial on how to download them without needing to sync with a computer and iTunes.

Video Transcript: Way back in 2008 we created a set of ringtones that you could download for free from MacMost.com and add to your iPhone. Now back then it was pretty hard to add ringtones to your iPhone. You had to download them to your Mac. You had to bring them into your iTunes Library and then you had to sync them from iTunes on your Mac to your iPhone. Then you would have them available. For a little while we had podcasts where each episode was a ringtone and that was an easy way to get them directly into iTunes. But you still had to sync them through a cable to your iPhone.
Well, I recently went and redid the entire MacMost Free Ringtones page. I put all the ringtones on a single page where you can browse through them. I put little Play buttons next to them so you could actually just tap the Play button, preview the ringtone, and I included a new way to get them directly on your iPhone. So you don't have to have a computer involved at all.
So when you look through this page here you can pick the ringtone that you want and notice that there is now a MP3 link and a M4R. MP3 is just a standard sound file and M4R is a special file. That's the file that I talked about where you can sync from iTunes on your Mac. But, the Add Direct To iPhone link is new. That's something that you can do here right on your iPhone. So in my iPhone I'm going to add that.
One requirement you need is you need to have GarageBand. A free app from Apple. It's a lot of fun and it's a great app but it also has the ability to add ringtones directly on your phone. So you can use it to make your own ringtones. You can use it to take sound files and build GarageBand documents that then can be used as ringtones. But what the Add Direct To iPhone is is it's a GarageBand project I've already created. So it makes it really simple and easy to add. So let's go and look through the steps assuming you have GarageBand on your phone already.
Let's pick a sound there. We'll try this one as a ringtone. I'm going to tap Add Direct To iPhone. It's going to take me to this screen here. This screen is going to vary from phone to phone. On this particular phone it says Open in GarageBand. But on another phone it will actually say Open in Files or Open in Documents. I'm not sure why there's the difference but either way it is going to open up in GarageBand. So tap the Open In link.
Now it will take a second there for it to appear in GarageBand. In a couple cases I found that it never appears there unless you go to Browse and then you'll see it there and you can go back to Recents if you want. But once you see it there you're not quite ready to add it yet because for some reason you need to at least open it once in GarageBand one time for this to work. So I'm going to tap it and it will open up in GarageBand and now I can actually hit the Play button if I want but it's not required. I can just tap the button at the top left, return to the previous screen.
Now I'm going to tap and hold for about two seconds on the icon there. When I release, instead of opening it, it's going to give me a menu at the top. If it opens it up you haven't held for long enough. One of the options there is Share. I'm going to tap Share and you can see now I get the option to Share as a ringtone. Now you're going to get this message on some of the ringtones. If the time of the ringtone, it's got to be 30 seconds or shorter, if it's a 30 second ringtone it's going to give you this message even though it is 30 seconds, and you can just hit continue. It's not going to affect anything. Some of the ringtones are shorter than 30 seconds and you won't get this message.
Now you get this screen here with an Export button at the top right. Tap the Export button. It's going to export it as a ringtone and it's going to give you some options when it's done. You can, right now, select Use Sound As and you can choose use as a ringtone, text tone, assign to a specific contact. But you don't have to make this decision now. You can just hit Done and it's added to your ringtones library on your phone.
So now let's return to the Home screen here and in Settings let's go to Sounds. It might say Sounds and Haptics depending on your model of iPhone. Under anything here like Ringtone, Text Tone, etc., anything that's going to use the ringtone as a sound you can tap it and you can see the standard ones but also you can see the ones you've just added. You can see there's Ringtones and above a line there there's one for the sound I just added. You can now assign it to a specific thing like being my text tone now.
So you can browse through and pick any that you like and add them for free to your iPhone. There's a variety of things here like here's some that are specifically for alarms in the morning. There are some that are just nicely designed. There are some that are just kind of funny or interesting, Some that musical. Some that are for holidays and for all sorts of interests and hobbies and things like that. So take a look through them and hopefully you can find something that you would like to use for a ringtone or text tone.

Link: Free iPhone Ringtones

Comments: 16 Responses to “Free iPhone Ringtones Revisited”

Dot

5 years ago

Thanks! I've been using Gamelon5 for years.

Justine

Do you have a post on how to make your own ringtones?

Gary Rosenzweig

Justine: Yes. See https://macmost.com/create-custom-ringtones-on-your-iphone.html

Carol Gaskill

Thanks great link, easy to use, lots of choices!

Jeff Knouse

Thank you for the ringtone tutorial. It is a great resource. PS Love your iCloud course.

Sue Wills

Thanks, that was great! I now have two new ringtones to annoy and amaze. LOL

Tanya Metaksa

Followed your instructions but most of the ringtones came back with song could not be exported. Any suggestions?

Tanya: Which iPhone? Which version of iOS and which version of GarageBand? Did you remember to open the ringtone in GarageBand first? Did you try to play it to test before exiting to export it?

Susa

When I touch export it says “the song cannot be opened” and goes back to the icon I selected. Suggestions?

Susa: Are you using the latest iOS and GarageBand? Did you remember to open the ringtone inside GarageBand first? Do that again and also test the ringtone in GarageBand by playing it.

Pat R

Is there a way to get these ringtones without GarageBand on my iPhone using my iMac? When I try to listen and download them using my iMac there is no sound. I have a couple of ringtone Apps on my iMac which are simple and work well.

Pat: I don't know what apps you are using and how they work. But you can certainly download the m4r files I provide on that page, add them to iTunes, and sync to your iPhone the old-fashion way if you want. That is why I provide the m4r files.

Susan Hartman

Did all the above and says song cannot be opened. Tried several different songs too.

Susan: Which version of iOS and GarageBand are you using? What device? What happens when you simply try to play the ringtone in GarageBand? Does it play?

Gary, it works once I played the song in garage band first. Thank you!

Lori Adelson

Thanks Gary, I was glad to get a few different wake up tones:) Worked perfectly on my XR phone

Comments Closed.

Free iPhone Ringtones Revisited

Comments: 16 Responses to “Free iPhone Ringtones Revisited”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information