How to add custom ringtones on your iPhone

I found this on @ http://www.hacktheiphone.com/iphone_ringtone_installation.html

How to add custom ringtones/system sounds (for intel Mac users)

For Windows users, instructions are now posted at Nate True's site. They will be posted here with screen shots later...

Before I get into the instructions, I must give credit where credit is due. Because of the hard work of a couple people, "geohot", "nightwatch" and "ziel" in particular, and the rest of the #iphone-dev crew, we have two programs and a method that make this possible. The programs are called jailbreak and iPhoneInterface. Original instructions for how to do this were provided to me by "JavaCoderEx" which I then redrafted and illustrated. I'd also like to thank the following people for helping me add the instructions that allow sync ability to remain unbroken: "chews", "Christian", "lunatixcoder", "pdb" and "TkN" for pointing out this method, explaining it to me, and for tech checking these instructions numerous times to make sure they were right. This obviously makes this modification so much more worth it. Before, people gave up the ability to sync just to have a ringtone!

Custom ringtones are one of the biggest requests by people that want to modify their iPhone to make it unique. This page will teach you how to add your own files to the iPhone to use as a ringtone. For those of you PPC Mac users out there, for whatever reason the universal binary of jailbreak does not work.

Warning

• We felt we had to say something before you performed this modification. There is obviously some risk involved here, but everyone we know of has been able to restore their iPhone by using iTunes. I've heard no report of anyone damaging their iPhone by doing this. However, if your iPhone becomes unresponsive to restoration via iTunes, then you may have to seek repair or replacement through Apple Inc., or AT&T. Pay careful attention to the instructions here. We are NOT responsible for your results. You are assuming all risks. These instructions were completed successfully by many people before being posted here, but we cannot account for everyone's individual computer system configurations or ability to follow directions.

Step 1. Make sure your iPhone is docked and fully charged (just to be safe).

Step 2. From iTunes, make sure you have a backup of your phone and all settings (if you want to keep them). Simply connect the iPhone to your computer and iTunes will sync your iPhone. Automatically backed-up information includes text messages, notes, call history, contact favorites, sound settings, widget settings, certain network settings, and other preferences.

Step 3. Quit iTunes. Don't just minimize it, shut it down. If you have the iTunes Helper open, you must quit that as well. To determine if the iTunes Helper is running open the Activity Monitor program found in the Utilities folder inside of the Applications folder. If it is running, highlight it in the list and click the Quit Process button.

Step 4. Make sure the iPhone is on.

Step 5. Download the software restore file from Apple. Click here. Once the file is downloaded, most browsers may automatically decompress the file and leave a folder called iPhone1,1_1 on your desktop. If your browser did not do this, and you have a .ipsw file instead, then rename the extension to .zip and decompress it yourself.

Step 6. Create a folder called phonedmg in your home folder.

Step 7. Place the software restore files you downloaded from Apple (the iPhone1,1_1 folder) into the phonedmg folder. Do not place the whole folder in here, just what's in the folder.

Step 8. Download the "jailbreak" program here you can also get it here. Put these files into the phonedmg folder.

Step 9. Download the iPhoneInterface (v 0.3.3) program here you can also get it here. Put these files into the phonedmg folder.

Step 10. Go to your Applications folder and then go into the Utilities folder and find the program called Terminal. You should move this to your dock for easier access. Note that when typing in the terminal, everything is case sensitive. So watch your capital letters and lower case letters. Do not interchange them, they won't work.

Step 11. Start Terminal and type: cd phonedmg    Then press the enter key.

You'll see you are now in the phonedmg directory where all of your files that you downloaded earlier should be.

Step 12. Type: ./jailbreak    Then press the enter key. You should see the text "Looking for iPhone..."   If you don't, then you did something wrong. When you run jailbreak with the iPhone on you'll get this:

It will next say:

Step 13. Press and hold the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button for a full 25 seconds.

The iPhone will restart in recovery mode. At this point the iTunes program may open, so close it.

Note: If you have iTunes 7.3.1 it won't launch automatically when you go into recovery mode. Continue to Step 14.

Note: If you have iTunes 7.3.054 go back to the Terminal window running jailbreak and press and hold the CTRL key while pressing the C key. You have to do this because jailbreak tells you to go into recovery mode, and doesn't give you a prompt to kill the shell process.

At the new prompt type ./jailbreak    Then press the enter key. A few additional lines of text will appear as the iPhone is modified.

Step 14. Now copy your ringtone to the phonedmg folder. Make sure the file is in .m4a format (I've heard .mp3 also works but they must be created from within iTunes - some special encoding method?) In this example I've put the song myringtone.m4a here.

It is best to copy ALL the ringtones you want to add to the iPhone at this point, otherwise you'll have to repeat these instructions starting from Step 10 to add more later.

Step 15. Back in the Terminal type: ./iPhoneInterface    Then press the enter key.

Step 16. Now type mkdir /var/root/Library/Ringtones    Then press the enter key.
Now type: cd /var/root/Library/Ringtones    Then press the enter key.

Step 17. Next type: putfile myringtone.m4a    Then press the enter key.   Note if you want to delete a ringtone type: rmdir myringtone.m4a (or whatever your file name is).

If you would also like to replace system sounds follow the instructions within this bordered area, otherwise skip to Step 18 to continue with ringtone replacement. These instructions were contributed by "Christian" "Ksilebo", and "TkN". For the ultimate in customization, you can follow these steps to change your system sounds for new mail, new sms, new voicemail, et cetera. Remember you will be updating the system sounds, you can always restore them with a full restore or one by one by using the backups in the 39.dmg file. The default system files in /System/Library/Audio/UISounds alarm.caf dtmf-2.caf beep-beep.caf dtmf-0.caf dtmf-1.caf dtmf-3.caf dtmf-4.caf dtmf-5.caf dtmf-6.caf dtmf-7.caf dtmf-8.caf dtmf-9.caf dtmf-pound.caf dtmf-star.caf lock.caf long_low_short_high.caf low_power.caf mail-sent.caf middle_9_short_double_low.caf new-mail.caf photoShutter.caf ReceivedMessage.caf RingerChanged.caf SentMessage.caf short_double_high.caf short_double_low.caf short_low_high.caf SIMToolkitCallDropped.caf SIMToolkitGeneralBeep.caf SIMToolkitNegativeACK.caf SIMToolkitPositiveACK.caf SIMToolkitSMS.caf sms-received.caf Tink.caf Tock.caf unlock.caf ussd.caf Voicemail.caf Step 17a. Choose a file, convert it to .aif using QuickTime and rename the .aif to .caf.   The .caf sould have the exact same name as the system file you are trying to replace (i.e. yourCustom.aif becomes new-mail.caf). Step 17b. Put the new .caf file in the phonedmg folder used earlier. Step 17c. In the Terminal type: putfile /System/Library/Audio/UISounds/.caf    Then press the enter key.

Now in order to not lose sync ability with iTunes we must replace the Services.plist file with the original one from iTunes.

Step 18. Download the original Services.plist file from here or from here. You can also get this from the decrypted 39.dmg file, but I won't explain this here.

Step 19. Put the Services.plist file inside the phonedmg folder.

Step 20. Type: cd /System/Library/Lockdown Then press the enter key.

Step 21. Type: putfile Services.plist Then press the enter key.

Step 22. Type: exit Then press the enter key.

Step 23. Turn off the iPhone then turn it back on. Go to: Settings -> Sounds -> Ringtone, and select your new ringtone. Here's my before and after. Note the difference in time. I wound up reclarifying the instructions as I went through them.

Once you have done this, iTunes doesn't automatically launch when connecting the iPhone. You can launch iTunes manually and it will sync with the iPhone though.

If you find the iPhone acting weird, just put it into recovery mode (press and hold the Home button and the Sleep/Wake button for a full 25 seconds), then launch iTunes and allow it to restore the iPhone. You will of course need to repeat these instructions to replace your ringtones that the restore process erases.

FAQ

#1. When I run jailbreak it returned an error "Problem with Ditto: 6".

This happens when you are starting in recovery mode, you need to start in normal mode. The jailbreak program tells you when to switch to recovery mode. It does not tell you to do this the first time you run it, only after the first use.

#2. My phone number showed up as N/A when I did this. What did I do wrong?

It's a common thing for this to happen immediately after the first sync with iTunes after you have added your ringtones. If you unplug your phone and plug it back in, the phone number will reappear.

#3. When I try to use the cd command, or putfile command, it says "Path ... does not exist."

The file system of the iPhone is case sensitive, so you must enter filenames to reflect that. A command cd /library will not work, but cd /Library will.

#4. When I type cd/System/Library/Lockdown the path doesn't go anywhere on the iPhone.

Then you have not run the jailbreak program. Open your Activity Monitor program found in the Utilities folder inside of Applications and make sure iTunes Helper isn't running. If it is, highlight it in the list and click the Quit Process button. Continue from Step 12.

#5. Where can I get some ringtones ready to go?

Go to IRC server irc.osx86.hu and join room #iphone-test-tunes   Also check out this site which has a collection in the proper format.