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A little unusual post today, but I figured out how to make iTunes accept a longer ringtone – it is iTunes that limits the ringtone length, not the iPhone itself. And the best thing, you need no extra software and no jailbreak.
So how to do it? A few steps:
- Create a short ringtone for your iPhone
- Make a snippet of one of your favorite mp3 files or use the iTunes Information “Option” settings to Start/Stop quickly
- Use iTunes to convert the mp3 to AAC. You might have to set the CD import settings to the AAC codec, if you have set the Start/Stop time this will only convert the snippet
- Rename the file extension from .m4a to .m4r (ringtone)
- Drag & Drop the file onto your iTunes library
- Now you have a ringtone
- Sync ringtones to your iPhone – I set it to sync all of them
- Now you have the short ringtone on your iPhone
- Make an AAC version of the longer file, either resetting the Start/Stop time or using a different mp3 file.
- Replace the existing (short version) of your ringtone with the new longer one. It might be needed to have the exact same tag information (I have not tested that)
- Disable the sync in iTunes and apply
- The ringtones will be removed from your iPhone
- Re-enable the sync and apply
- iTunes will now gladly sync your new extra long ringtone to your iPhone
I have a full length song on it right now, so I don’t know what the upper limit is. Enjoy!
Buz World 
Great tip! Thanks…
By: Tom on March 10, 2012
at 10:31 pm
Got the “Too Long” message on new 4s
By: Glen on May 29, 2012
at 9:57 pm
mallar mallar :*
By: YOUR FREND on December 8, 2013
at 6:05 pm
I just have a question on that – how (where) do I replace the short version?
By: Barb on June 9, 2012
at 12:14 pm
Hi,
Just replace the file on your PC and re-sync.
By: buzina on August 8, 2012
at 10:59 am
Hmm it doesnt work here ..
By: Jeroen on August 11, 2012
at 3:37 pm
I haven’t tried for a while, maybe some iOS update killed it?
By: buzina on August 13, 2012
at 4:17 pm
thank you, worked fine on my iPhone 4 iOS 6.0. Itunes says that tone lenght is 0:30, but when I play it on phone, the whole song is being played, nice 🙂
By: Ričards Pauls on November 29, 2012
at 6:01 pm
Thanks! Works perfectly on my iPhone 4 iOS 5.1.1 (iTunes 11)
By: Sam on December 17, 2012
at 12:30 am
Great .. You r genius 😀
It does work perfectly 😉
By: Ahmed Alshaikh on January 13, 2013
at 2:22 am
dont understand the replace process and the disable the sync? should we also rename the longer acc to m4r? i replaced the short one and then disabled the sync but it didnt remove the tone from my phone?
By: newuser on January 19, 2013
at 11:46 am
Worked perfectly.. Thank you so much…. 🙂 For those of us having questions on where to replace the file.. Replace the file from where you dragged the .m4r into the iTunes before.. Don’t drag the file again into iTunes after creating the long version…
By: pSal on January 26, 2013
at 10:00 pm
BTW, this worked with iPhone4, ios 6.0 and iTunes 10.0 …
By: pSal on January 26, 2013
at 10:01 pm
Hi there… Can you possibly made this guide with pictures ? thanks
By: Ken on January 27, 2013
at 8:41 am
Thanks a lot!!! itunes gave me the alert that the ringtone is too long but it was sync-ed in anyway 🙂
By: olivia on February 16, 2013
at 4:11 pm
Awesome! Thank you! It took a few tries to get it right but I finally got it working. I’m on a Mac, so I thought I would clarify the instructions for point 5 and 6 for other Mac users.
5. Replace the Ringtone File – as said in another comment, dragging the longer file back into iTunes won’t work. Instead, go to the Tones section of your iTunes library and right click on the ringtone you want to replace. Choose “Show in Finder”. You’ll see your Tones folder, with the short version of your ringtone.
The short ringtone file might not have the same name you assigned to it when you created it. Make note of the file name, and go back to your longer AAC file (I kept mine on my desktop). Rename the longer file to exactly match the shorter one in your Tones folder, including the .m4r extension. Now, drag the longer file from your desktop (or wherever you had it) into the Tones folder in the Finder. You’ll get a ‘do you want to replace the existing file’ message. Choose ‘replace’.
6. Unsync and Sync – Go to your iTunes iPhone Tones section and un-check the Sync section. You’ll get a message that un-syncing will remove your files. Click OK. Then, I clicked Apply at the bottom of the window. Now, re-check the Sync option, and click Apply again.
Now, the short file on your phone should be replaced with the longer one.
By: Kat on March 21, 2013
at 9:08 pm
Thanks Kat! This worked for me… but I think we need to make sure that we haven’t already set that as ringtone in the phone.. I had to spend lot of time investigating how to get it right…
By: Bob on April 1, 2013
at 7:56 am
That’s the only way I could get it to work on a PC as well. Thanks OP and Kat!!
By: Ben on April 29, 2013
at 3:03 pm
Works on iPhone 4S iOS 6.1.3
Thanks a lot man!
By: Sk1X1 on June 14, 2013
at 11:07 pm
Works on latest update (iOS 6.1.3) on 4s and 4! Those who have a problem, try quitting iTunes before copying the long version to the tones folder in Finder.
By: NiK on June 17, 2013
at 3:32 pm
Having a lot of trouble here. Running Windows 7, and I’ve tried everything but I keep getting the notification that the ringtone is too long. Can anyone help?
By: Vick on June 18, 2013
at 3:54 am
Could you please do a pic explanation or a YouTube video. Some of us, I mean I am not computer literate like most of the people. Thanks I really want this.
By: Cc on September 8, 2013
at 11:37 pm
you are a genius… excellent work
By: cord on September 11, 2013
at 1:52 pm
I have a 4 sec mp3 that I would like to use as a ringtone. It appears that it is too short. I cannot figure out how to loop it so it’s long enough. Kind of the opposite of what is talked about here. Any ideas?
By: Dag mer on September 22, 2013
at 2:45 pm
Is there any way that anyone could post a video up about this? I’ve tried it about a dozen times, and nothing seems to be working. I keep getting the pop-up that the newer (longer) ringtone is too long to be used as a ringtone. I use a PC.
By: Judy on November 4, 2013
at 7:07 pm
Thanks! Works on iPhone 5 with iOS7.
So, here are details once again, for “less literate” folks. Assumption is that you have mp3 in iTunes. Click means “Right Click”. iPhone is connected to iTunes.
0. Go to “Music” on iTunes (not on iPhone, so press “Done” if iTunes says Your iPhone)
1. Short version of mp3
a) Click on “Get Info->Options” on desired song
b) Stop time = 0:30, OK
c) Click Create AAC version
d) Click Delete on new AAC version, and Keep File
e) Click “Show in Finder” (or explorer) on original mp3, should show 2 files
f) Rename m4a into m4r
g) Drag file to iTunes (it should be visible in “Tones” section now, disappeared from Finder)
2. Choose iPhone, tab Tones
3. Sync Tones enabled
4. Select tone
5. Apply Sync to iPhone
6. Press “Done” to return to iTunes
=============================
7. Go to “Music” on iTunes
8. Long version of mp3
a) Click on “Get Info->Options” on desired song
b) Uncheck Stop time, OK
c) Click Create AAC version
d) Click Delete on new AAC version, and Keep File
e) Click “Show in Finder” (or explorer) on original mp3, should show 2 files
f) Rename m4a into m4r
g) DO NOT DRAG IT TO iTunes
9. Go to “Tones” on iTunes
10. Click “Show in Finder” (or Explorer) on desired tone. It will show short version of m4r file in Finder (or Explorer)
11. Copy long version over that short version IN FINDER (or Explorer)
=============================
12. Choose iPhone, tab Tones
13. Uncheck Sync Tones, OK, Apply changes to iPhone
14. Check Sync Tones, OK, Apply changes to iPhone
15. Enjoy
By: iostriz on November 6, 2013
at 5:08 pm
[…] buzina.wordpress.com […]
By: iphone full length ringtone tutorial | Annotary on November 29, 2013
at 12:06 pm
Just a little info for some of you saying you get a message saying the new ringtone is too long, go ahead and sync anyways, my shorter ringtone was still replaced with the longer version even though it gave me that error message.
By: Dezi on February 19, 2014
at 12:06 am
Works for ios7.1.2 and OS-X 10.9.4 running iTunes v11.3 (54)
By: Vinayak Shenoy on July 21, 2014
at 6:19 am
Great! Many Thanks! Worked perfectly on my iPhone 4s iOS 7.1.2 with iTunes 11.3.0.54.
By: jalloul on August 12, 2014
at 5:17 pm
Perfect
By: Senele Sandile on September 10, 2014
at 2:13 pm
Guys, want to confirm that iostriz’s method for us dummies also works on IOS 8.0.2 with iTunes 12.0.1.26 running on a Macbook Pro running OS-X 10.10
By: Vinayak Shenoy on October 19, 2014
at 8:00 pm
This thing still works! Just did it with iPhone 6!
By: Addern on December 16, 2014
at 5:52 pm
Awesome.. working in ios 8.1, iphone 6..!!!! Love u man..!!!!
By: ss on February 12, 2015
at 7:33 pm
Perfect… i love you dude. I can’t even express my level of gratitude and happiness. You’re awesome
By: sarra on March 19, 2015
at 12:22 am
This is gold, this is! Worked for me on the first try! Using iOS 8.3
By: Sana on April 10, 2015
at 8:15 pm
Doesn’t work on IOS8.3 on an iPhone5s 😦
By: Vinayak on April 28, 2015
at 7:53 am
This method worked instead:
On Mac (OSXv10.10.3) & iOSv8.3 you can do this:
Create two folders, one for short and one for long
Create two .mr4 (.m4a, renamed) ringtones, one to each folder
Short one must be LESS than 40 seconds
Give both files same name
Open iTunes and drag the short tone to tone library
Close iTunes
Open /Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Tones
Rename the ringtone from eg. tone.m4r to tone.m4r_short
Copypaste long version to Tones folder mentioned in 6, and make sure it has same name as short one had
Open iTunes, the Ringtones (or Tones) sections shows, that your tone’s length is same as the short one’s but content is from the long one.
Connect your iDevice, select Tones, select tones to sync, and click sync
Done!
By: Vinayak on April 28, 2015
at 8:10 am
Original method worked perfectly on iTunes 12.0.1 & 5S with iOS 8.4. Thank you!
By: Anatoly on July 30, 2015
at 1:27 pm
iOS 9.1 sais when reenabling tones sync: “iTunes Sync 1 item could not be synced. See iTunes for more information”
By: Andor Nagy on January 12, 2016
at 9:32 pm
[…] Trick the iPhone into a longer ringtone – no jailbreak … – Jan 24, 2012 · Trick the iPhone into a longer ringtone – no jailbreak needed … Sync ringtones to your iPhone … ringtone to your iPhone; I have a full length song on … […]
By: How To Get Full Length Ringtones On Iphone 4 | Test Cron on March 25, 2016
at 12:29 am
…and it is no longer possible with iOS 10.11 and latest iTunes version 12.5.4. I am so much frustrated since repairmen who replaced Power button in my iPhone reset all settings making my beloved long ringtones never be able again. Apple, die you greedy bitch!
By: Tatiana on December 16, 2016
at 1:39 am
It works like charm, in 2017.
iTunes 12.5.3.17 (should update it later)
iPhone 4S, iOS 9.3.5
Read the instructions clearly 🙂
By: Lotto on May 8, 2017
at 1:00 pm
Your home is valueble for me. Thanks!…
By: vimore on March 22, 2018
at 2:21 am