The "official" method for creating iPhone ringtones is to buy them from the iTunes store. Purchased ringtones cost $0.99 each and are only available for music that you purchased in the iTunes Store. (meaning you can't buy iTunes ringtones from music you have ripped from your own CDs or purchased from some other source such as Amazon MP3.)

Instructions on creating ringtones from iTunes music can be found in this tip.

Garage Band

You can use Garage Band to create free ringtones from any music track. There are more steps required and a familiarity with Garage Band is helpful.

Complete instructions can be found here.

Third Party Applications

If you don't want to tackle Garage Band, there are several applications that will automatically create ringtones from your music tracks. At prices that run from $15.00 and up, buying a ringtone application is only worth it if you plan to create many ringtones.

A list of third party ringtone applications can be found here.

What to avoid

You can Google "free iPhone ringtones" and you will get many, many results. Most of these sites offer ringtones created from unlicensed pop music. The dodgy thing about these sites is that you don't know what you are actually downloading. Any time you find a web site that offers for free what you would normally have to pay for, you can bet that there is some sort of hidden cost somewhere, maybe in the form of malware downloaded to your Mac. Avoid like the plague any website that wants you to create an account or asks for personal or banking information.

And a final comment: think about the wisdom of using a music clip as your ringtone. A burst of Justin Bieber from your phone at an important business meeting could be embarrassing to say the least

Related Items: Ringtone | iTunes | Garage Band