How to Set an Instrumental Ringtone

Android accepts an MP3 directly. iPhone needs the file converted to M4R first. Both routes take a few minutes and only have to be done once per tone.

Android and iPhone take different routes to the same result. Android accepts an MP3 directly. iPhone needs the file converted to M4R first, which sounds worse than it is: GarageBand does it on the phone in about four minutes, and only once per tone.

Both routes are below, along with per-contact tones, notification sounds and the fixes for the two problems that come up most often: the file not appearing in the list, and the tone sounding too quiet.

1

Browse or search

Use the search box or the category, instrument, mood and length filters to narrow the library down to the kind of tone you want.

2

Preview the tone

Press play and listen through your phone speaker at your normal ring volume, not through headphones. Headphones flatter everything.

3

Press download

The file downloads directly from this site to your device. Your browser and operating system decide the destination folder, usually Downloads.

4

Set it on your phone

Android accepts the MP3 directly from Settings. iPhone needs a conversion to M4R first, which GarageBand handles on the phone itself.

Android

Set a ringtone on Android

  1. Download the MP3 from any ringtone page. It lands in your usual Downloads folder.
  2. Open Settings, then Sound and vibration.
  3. Tap Ringtone, or Phone ringtone on some builds.
  4. Look for a plus icon, Add, My sounds or Local music, and select the file.
  5. Save. On dual-SIM phones, repeat for the second SIM.

If the file does not appear in the picker, restart the phone so the media scanner indexes it, or move the file into the Ringtones folder in internal storage.

iPhone

Set a ringtone on iPhone

  1. Download the MP3 and choose Save to Files when Safari asks.
  2. Install GarageBand from the App Store if you do not already have it.
  3. Create a new Audio Recorder project, open the loop browser, and drag your file in from the Files tab.
  4. Trim the clip to about thirty seconds. iOS rejects anything over forty.
  5. Long-press the project in My Songs, choose Share, then Ringtone, and export.
  6. Open Settings, then Sounds and Haptics, then Ringtone, and select your tone.

A computer works too: convert the MP3 to M4R, connect the iPhone, and drag the file onto the device in Finder or the Apple Devices app.

Formats

MP3 and M4R explained

MP3 is the universal option. Every Android phone accepts it as a ringtone with no conversion, and it plays on every desktop and browser. All files on this site are MP3.

M4R is Apple's ringtone format, an AAC stream in an MPEG-4 container. iOS accepts nothing else for ringtones, which is why an MP3 needs converting before it can be used on an iPhone.

Renaming an MP3 to .m4r does not convert anything. The extension changes, the audio data does not, and iOS rejects the file. Any site offering an instant M4R that is really a renamed MP3 is giving you a file that will fail on import. Where a genuine M4R exists here, it is offered as a separate download; where it does not, you get an honest MP3 with conversion instructions.

Common problems

Setup questions