How-to Get Free Ringtones (No Jailbreaking Required)

When the iPhone came out, tons of people were furious that you could only use the pre-installed ringtones. Then, Apple appeased them by allowing you to create your own ringtones, yet some remained outraged at the $1.98 price tag for a short ringtone. No, it's not that much, but getting free ringtones doesn't hurt anybody, does it? Now, anyone can get free ringtones for their iPhone, but, chances are, those who have jailbroken their phones are the only ones that are gutsy (or maybe its foolish) enough to do it. It is so simple that a 4-year old child could do it (somebody get me a 4-year old child!). Follow these simple steps to convert any sound file on your computer into a ringtone on your iPhone—for free! Keep in mind that no programming skills are required; in fact, your phone doesn't even need to be jailbroken in order to do this. Without further ado, here's how to get your free iPhone ringtones:

Step 1

There are tons of websites out there offering free iPhone ringtones, but I have only found one that offers great quality ringtones, allows you to select your own sound files for ringtone conversion, doesn't toss malicious viruses in with your downloads, and is incredibly simple. The website is audiko.net. Here is the step one: go to audiko.net.

Step 2

You can either search their existing ringtones for your song, or, what I prefer, is you can upload your own audio files for ringtone conversion. If you want to search for a ringtone, enter your query into the search box toward the bottom of the screen, select your desired tone, then jump to Step 4 for further instruction.

If you want to upload your own audio files, you are at the right step. Select "Upload" from the home page, and navigate to your desired audio file and select it. The ringtone that I am making today is "My Freeze Ray" by Neil Patrick Harris from the best web show of all time: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Anyways, select your audio file and hit "Open". Once it's done loading, you will see a screen like this:

Just drag either end of the dark blue slider to the beginning and end of your ringtone. You can even fade in and/or fade out! Also, it lets you know where the iPhone will cut off the ringtone so that you can cut it accordingly. When you like ringtone enough to hear it hundreds of times around your peers, click on the "Create ringtone!" button.

Step 3

Next, you'll be greeted by the above page. This is the information that will be attached to the ringtone. It isn't neccessary, but iTunes will display the information when the ringtone goes in there, and it allows for others to search the ringtone you just created. Enter this information for your specific audio file.

Step 4

As you can see, it may even know the album art for your ringtone. Select "Download ringtone for iPhone". Then you'll get a pop-up of the following image:

Open it in iTunes (it should be the default), and then, since Audiko does fancy computer work, iTunes thinks that your ringtone is acceptable for your iPhone. Silly iTunes. Now, you're just about done. The rest of this just shows you how to sync a ringtone to your phone in case you don't know how to:

Step 5

Plug in your iPhone and select the "Ringtones" tab in iTunes at the top of the screen, and then check the ringtone you have just added to your library using Audiko. Then, just sync and you're done! And that is how you convert one of your own audio files into a ringtone for the iPhone--for free! Like I said before, you don't need to have a jailbroken phone to do this, but it's only hackers that usually take advantage of things like this. Enjoy your free ringtones!

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