There are thousands of sites out there offering free mp3 ringtones for your mobile phones, and those are pretty easy to install on the phone. All you need is to plug your phone to computer or connect to internet to download the ringtone. But iPhone doesn’t allow you to enjoy custom ringtones with such ease. As the matter of fact, the default ringtones for iPhone are not even cool enough as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and others do offers.

In this step to step guide, I will be guiding you to make a custom ringtone out of your favorite music track.

To get start you will be needing iTunes, the software which is essential for your iPhone and Computer connectivity. If you don’t have the iTunes, you can get the latest copy of it from the link given below

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download

1. Open the iTunes and navigate to the tab called “Music”, the one highlighted in the picture

2. Pick your favorite song, and hit the play button and let the music play for duration of 0:24 to 0:40 seconds maximum. As soon the song reaches to this duration, stop the music.

3. Now right click the same song and select the “Get Info” from the Menu.

4. Move your cursor to the “Options” tab, and checked the “Stop Time:” and set the value to desired duration, such as 0:25. And hit the OK button.

5. Now right click the same song and select the “Create AAC Version” from the menu. As soon you hit the “Create AAC Version”, a new file will be created right under the selected file.

6. Now right click on the NEWLY generated file and click “Show in Windows Explorer”.

7. Here you need to change the file extension. To allow yourself to make this change, go to “Folder Option” from the same folder. (Organize>Folder & Search Options), and uncheck the field “Hide extensions for known file types” and return back to that folder.

8. Now you should be able to see file extension as “m4a” with the file name. Now change the file extension by renaming the file. Change extension to “m4r” instead of “m4a”.

9. Once you are done with the renaming the file, icon of the file should change and should be recognized as a Ringtone as shown in image.

10. Now double click the file to open, it should be automatically opened to iTunes under the tab of “Ringtones”.

:: If you are unable to see “Ringtones” tab. Navigate to “Edit>Preferences>General”  and make sure the Ringtones field is checked.

11. Now simply SYNC your Phone via iTunes and you are good to go.

12. After syncing your Phone, unplug the phone to navigate to “Settings>Sounds>Ringtone” and you should be able to see the newly generated Ringtone.

Enjoy your new Ringtone.

Special thanks to my friend @saadbassi for the tip.