How to Create Free Ringtones Directly on Your iPhone

Creating a ringtone for your iPhone from your favorite song can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s how to quickly whip up a killer new tone directly on your phone.

There are numerous ringtone apps in the iOS app store. We checked out about a dozen of them, and they all have similar functionality. All of the apps we tested required that you load music to the iPhone using iTunes instead of downloading it from a cloud or streaming music service. It remains to be seen how the retirement of iTunes will affect these apps going forward. A surprising number of these apps also look for a weekly subscription upgrade to unlock all the features, which feels a little dirty.

Ultimately, we went with Ringtone Designer 2.0. Ringtone Designer 2.0 has all the basics you need—the ability to import a track and determine the positioning and length of the clip (30 seconds max). It also adds the ability to fade the clip in and out.

There is a pro upgrade option available, but it’s a one-time purchase for $0.99, not a subscription. The pro option allows you to create longer tones—up to 40 seconds. It also allows you to use your device’s microphone to record any sound to use as a ring tone.

With or without the pro upgrade, this is a straightforward app to use.