Windows and Mac: Custom Ringtones in iTunes 10

If you are a Mac user and wanted to create your own ringtones in iTunes 10, you may have searched online and found online guides, such as OSXdaily.com, which walk you through the process of clipping your song, renaming the file in Finder, etc.

If you are a Windows user, the steps are essentially the same but you may not be able to see the file extension by default. Here are a few steps that may help:

1. From the Microsoft article, you will need to show filename extensions (so you can see the ".txt" or ".mp3" extension on your files)
2. Load your song into iTunes. This can be music you imported from your CDs, downloaded online, or even sound bytes you made yourself.
3. Following the same steps from the article above, you essentially select the song in iTunes, then use "Get Info". You can right-click (or Control-click on a Mac, if right-click isn't working) the song OR click on the Edit menu at the top of iTunes to find the "Get Info" option.
4. When you are looking at the tabs within the "Get Info" screen, click on the tab named Options. You should see something that shows a "Start Time" (and a checkbox next to it) as well as "Stop Time" (and a checkbox next to that).
5. Select a timeframe of music that you would like to "clip" and save as your ringtone. You should keep it under about 35 seconds (less is fine, more is not).
6. Make sure that both the "Start Time" and "Stop Time" checkboxes are checked and hit OK
7. It will look like nothing has happened, which is fine.
8. Right-click (or Control-click on a Mac) the song you just modified. About halfway down the menu you see will says "Create AAC Version".
   

   Note: if you don't see "Create AAC Version" but it has a different format in there, such as "Create MP3 Version", you need to change some of your settings in iTunes. Open iTunes preferences (usually under Edit|Preferences, or iTunes|Preferences on a Mac) and select the General tab (if it is not selected already). Next to "When you insert a CD:" you see a dropdown menu as well as an "Import Settings..." button. Click that "Import Settings..." button and change the "Import Using:" from "MP3 Encoder" (or whatever other format is listed) to "AAC Encoder" and hit OK for this screen, as well as for the Preferences window behind it. Now repeat this step of right-clicking and selecting "Create AAC Version".

9. This will create a duplicate entry of your song (album artwork and everything, if you have any), but the "Time" category will show the "cropped" time.
10. Right-click the same song (the original larger, not new "smaller", one) and uncheck the "Start Time" and "Stop Time" settings, else the songs will not play normally for their full lengths.
11. Now, working with the new, smaller file, right-click (Mac: Control-click) the song and choose "Show in Explorer" (Mac: "Show in Finder"). It should open the file location where your music is stored.
12. At this stage, you are going to be switching back and forth between two different windows for a bit. This is what is happening and why you'll switch between the windows:
    
    1. iTunes sees the new song in its library
    2. You see the new song on the hard drive in that second window
    3. You are going to rename a part of the new song's name and iTunes will no longer be able to access it
    4. iTunes will not remove the name out of the iTunes Library just because the file is "no longer there" and will give you some problems when you try to re-add the file
    5. You are going to remove the new song from the iTunes library, change the song's file name in the other window, then add that file back into iTunes
13. In iTunes, right-click the new song's name and choose "Delete" near the bottom. It will prompt you for two things:
    
    1. Do you want to remove this song from your library? (YES, you do want to remove it from your library)
    2. Do you want to remove this song from the hard drive (or in other words, keep this file, or put it in the Recycle/Trash bin? (NO, you do not want to remove it -- or YES you want to keep the file)
14. In Windows Explorer (Mac: Finder), the file's extension will say ".m4a". You will replace this with ".m4r". You will be prompted whether you want to change the file extension (YES, you want to change it). This changes it from an ".m4audio" file to an ".m4ringtone" file.
15. Drag the new song (with the new .m4r extension) from the Windows Explorer (Mac: Finder) window and drop it onto the iTunes library.

This new ringtone should now appear in the left column of iTunes under the Ringtones category, which can now be sent to your iPhone.

If you find any omissions or errors with this, please let me know and I'll be happy to update the information.