Free iPhone ringtones for iTunes 7 and 8

I found this method of creating iPhone ringtones elsewhere on the web, but the way it's described to do it isn't exactly ... clear. So, here's a crystal clear explantion of how to use iTunes to create free ringtones for your iPhone (2G or 3G, it makes no difference).

I use a Mac, but the same method will work on Windows XP or Vista. There are seven very simple steps.

1. Choose your song

2. Right-click on the song in the iTunes 'Music' window, select 'Get Info', then 'Options' and choose the period of time you'd like to use as your ringtone. The maximum period is 40 seconds. Tick the 'start time' and 'end time' boxes, and you must use the number format 0:00.

3. Close the 'info' box, right-click on the song again and choose 'Create AAC version'. iTunes will duplicate the song and put it in the playlist immediately above the original version.

4. Go back to the original and de-select the start and end time boxes. 

5. Right-click on the AAC version you just created and delete it; NOTE that you should only delete it from the library, and not the machine - do not put it in the trash.

6. Navigate to the song manually in the /Users/Music/ iTunes/ folder (or My Docs/My Music/iTunes if you're using Windoze), find the song you just created and change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r. Ignore any warnings about changing the extension, just do it (in Windows you might have to go into Folder/File options and select 'show file extensions for known file types').

7. Double-click on the new .m4r file to add in back into the iTunes library. 

If you now check your 'ringtones' you'll see the file in there, and it can be synced to your iPhone.