How to Turn Any Song Into Your Ringtone: A Step-by-Step Guide

Remember when changing your ringtone meant paying three dollars for a choppy, 15-second MIDI snippet of a popular pop song? Fortunately, those days are long gone. Today, you can set literally any song—whether it is an indie track, a classical masterpiece, or a voice memo of your cat meowing—as your custom ringtone completely for free.

If you are tired of the default marimba and want your phone to reflect your actual personality when it rings, here is a complete, foolproof guide to downloading and setting a song as your ringtone on both iPhone and Android.

Step 1: Get the Song File on Your Phone

Before you can make a ringtone, you need the actual audio file (typically an MP3 or M4A) stored locally on your device. Depending on where your music lives, choose one of the options below:

Option A: Using Streaming Services (The Catch)

Popular streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music use Digital Rights Management (DRM) encryption to protect their music. This means you cannot directly download a song file from Spotify or Apple Music to use as a ringtone.

• The Workaround: If you own the track digitally (