Make a Ringtone on iPhone From Any Song or Video

You want your favorite five seconds of a song, or a line from a video someone sent you, playing when your phone rings instead of the default tone.

There’s no app on iPhone literally called “Ringtone Maker” — the real tool for this is GarageBand, Apple’s free music app, and the process is a specific sequence of taps rather than something you’d stumble into on your own.

Get GarageBand if you don’t have it

It’s a free download from the App Store, made by Apple, no purchase required for what you’re about to do.

Starting the project

On your Home Screen, touch and hold the GarageBand icon until the quick-actions menu appears, then tap Create New Audio Recording. Once it opens, tap Tracks at the top, then tap the instrument icon on the left to select that track, then tap Loops Browser at the top of the screen.

Getting your song or video’s audio in

From the Loops Browser: tap Files to pull in an audio file already saved to your device or iCloud (this is also where you’d bring in a video’s audio if you’ve already converted the video to an audio file first), or tap Music to use a song from your library — it has to actually be downloaded to your phone, not just available to stream, or it’ll show up dimmed and unusable.

A song still protected by rights management can’t be used at all.

Touch and hold the file, then drag it all the way to the left edge of the Tracks view so there’s no gap before it starts.

Picking your 30 seconds

Ringtones on iPhone can be up to 30 seconds long, full stop — that’s Apple’s own limit, not a workaround.

Tap the audio clip in the Tracks view and drag its left or right edge to trim down to the section you actually want (touch and hold an edge to zoom in for finer control), then drag the trimmed selection all the way to the left again so there’s no blank space at the start.

Turning it into an actual ringtone

Tap the Navigation button, then My Songs. Tap More, then Select, and choose the song you just made. Tap Share, then Ringtone. Give it a name and tap Export. If it’s still over 30 seconds at this point, GarageBand offers to shorten it for you automatically — or you can cancel and go trim it more precisely yourself.

Assigning it

Once export finishes, a “Use sound as” prompt appears: Standard Ringtone replaces your default ringtone for everyone, Standard Text Tone does the same for texts, and Assign to Contact ties this specific tone to one person so you know who’s calling before you look.

Tap Done if you just want it saved without assigning it to anything yet — it’ll be sitting in Settings → Sounds & Haptics → Ringtone whenever you want it later.

Frequently asked questions

Why does GarageBand say my song is dimmed and I can’t use it?

It’s either not actually downloaded to your device (streaming-only doesn’t count) or it’s protected by digital rights management, which blocks it from being used in any editing app, not just for ringtones.

What’s the actual maximum ringtone length?

30 seconds, per Apple’s own current instructions. If your exported tone runs longer, GarageBand will offer to automatically shorten it during export.

Can I make a ringtone from a video I downloaded?

Yes — pull the audio out of the video first, save that as its own audio file, then bring that file into GarageBand the same way as any other audio source.

Do I need an internet connection to do this?

Only if the song isn’t downloaded yet or GarageBand needs to fetch something for the first time. The actual trimming and exporting happens on-device.

Can I assign different ringtones to different contacts?

Yes, that’s exactly what “Assign to Contact” does during the export step, or you can do it later from a contact’s own page in Contacts.

Is GarageBand free?

Yes, it’s made by Apple and free to download, with nothing to buy for creating a ringtone this way.