Make a ringtone from any song, up to 30 seconds

How to make a ringtone

1. Drop a song on the box or press Choose a file. MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG and the sound of MP4 or MOV videos are accepted.
2. Drag the start and end handles on the waveform, or type Start and End in seconds. The line under the strip shows the selected length and “(max 30 s)”.
3. Press Play selection to hear it. Adjust until it starts on the beat or the first word of the chorus.
4. Set Fade in (default 0.5 s) and Fade out (default 2 s), each up to 10 s.
5. Choose Save as: M4R (iPhone ringtone) is the default; M4A, OGG, WAV and MP3 are also offered. Press Make ringtone and download the file.

What it does and when to use it

Phones ring for a few seconds before you answer, so the best ringtone is the most recognisable bit of a song: the hook, the first line of the chorus, or a distinctive intro. The fade in stops the ring from starting with a jolt; the fade out stops a hard cut if the phone keeps ringing and the clip loops.

Length depends on the job. A notification can be a 3-second sting, while a call tone should cover several rings. For a short alert, cut the sound and set a tiny fade. For an alarm that should start quietly, use a longer fade in, or prepare the file with audio fade in and out. If the song is quiet compared with your other ringtones, raise it first with the audio normaliser. For a cut longer than 30 s, use the audio trimmer instead.

How it works

The waveform is drawn by your browser’s own decoder for preview. When you press Make ringtone, the file is decoded again in a Web Worker on your device, the selection is cut (never longer than 30 s), and exponential fades are applied: gain rises as t³ at the start and falls the same way at the end, which sounds smoother than a straight line. The clip is then encoded. M4R and M4A use AAC, OGG uses Opus (both through your browser’s WebCodecs encoder), WAV is written directly, and MP3 needs the optional ffmpeg fallback, a one-time download of about 30 MB from cdn.jsdelivr.net. The song never leaves your device.

Worked examples

From the tool’s output on a 3-minute song:

• Start 45, End 90 (45 s typed): the end is moved back, giving 0:45 → 1:15 and Ringtone length 30 s.
• Start 10, End 30: Ringtone length 20 s. With WAV chosen, the note says to copy the file into the phone’s Ringtones folder and pick it under Settings → Sound.

With M4R chosen, the note gives the iPhone steps from the FAQ above instead.

Limits and tips

• Fades longer than half the clip overlap; keep them short on short clips.
• The 192 kbps default is plenty for a phone speaker; 128 kbps saves space.
• If the waveform does not appear, your browser cannot preview the format. Type the times and try anyway, or tick the ffmpeg option for formats such as AIFF or WMA.
• Use music you have the right to use.