How to make a ringtone from a song or recording

Before you start: pick the moment

Play the track and note where the part you want begins and ends, in seconds — a chorus, a riff, a line someone said. Times are entered in seconds, so 1:35 is 95. Aim for 20–30 seconds: long enough to recognise, short enough that it loops cleanly while the phone rings. If you're making one for an iPhone, keep it to 40 seconds or less.

Tip: Only use audio you have the right to use — your own recordings, music you've bought for personal use where the licence allows it, or tracks released for reuse. A ringtone for your own phone is very different from sharing or selling one.

Step 1: cut the part you want

1. Open Trim Audio and add your file — MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG, FLAC, or an MP4 or WebM video.
2. Set Start at and End at in seconds. The end starts at 30, which already makes a 30-second clip from the beginning.
3. Click Trim and download the clip.

The clip keeps a sensible format: WAV, M4A and OGG stay as they are, MP3 and FLAC come out as MP3, and from an MP4 video you get just the sound as M4A (WebM gives OGG).

Step 2: fade in and out

A clip cut from the middle of a song starts and stops abruptly. Fade In & Out tapers both ends: set the fade-in and fade-out lengths in seconds (0 skips one). For a ringtone, a short fade-in of about 0.5–1 second and a fade-out of 2–3 seconds usually sounds natural. The Save as menu offers MP3, M4A and WAV, so this step can also give you the final format.

If the clip is noticeably quieter than your other sounds, see how to fix quiet audio before you save the final version.

Step 3: get it onto your phone

Android

MP3 works as a ringtone on practically every Android phone. Copy the file to the phone — over USB, from cloud storage or by sending it to yourself — and either put it in the Ringtones folder or pick it directly in the sound settings. Menus differ between manufacturers and Android versions, but look for Settings → Sound → Phone ringtone, where most phones let you add a sound from your files.

iPhone

iPhone ringtones are .m4r files, which are simply AAC audio in an M4A file with a different extension. To make one:

1. Save your faded clip as M4A in Fade In & Out — or convert an existing clip with the Audio Converter, choosing M4A (AAC).
2. Check it's 40 seconds or shorter.
3. Rename the file so it ends in .m4r instead of .m4a. You may need to turn on file extensions in your computer's settings to see it.
4. Add it to the iPhone from a computer: on a Mac, connect the phone and drag the file onto it in Finder; on Windows, use the Apple Devices app or iTunes. Then choose it in Settings → Sounds & Haptics → Ringtone.

Another route is GarageBand on the iPhone itself, which can export a project as a ringtone. The exact steps vary with iOS, GarageBand and Windows app versions, so if a menu isn't where you expect, check Apple's current instructions.

Making a ringtone from a video

If the sound is in a video — a clip of your child laughing, a concert recording — you have two options. Trim Audio accepts MP4 and WebM directly and gives you the sound only. For other video types, such as an iPhone MOV, first pull out the soundtrack with Video to MP3 (choose M4A if you're heading for an iPhone), then trim and fade it as above.

All of these tools run in your browser, so your songs and recordings stay on your device. They use the browser's built-in media support (WebCodecs): recent Chrome, Edge and Safari 17+ work best, and Firefox handles most files.