Saving ringtones from text messages

[junebuddy]

got it now. thanks so much for the help!!

[louisedem]

Thanks AnnaBanana - I was finally able to save the downloaded ringtones after scouring these forums for a very long time. However, in my many attempts at this I may have caused a problem. When I view the two ringtones in the files folder, they were not saved as .mp3 files. they were saved as MMS_999dm. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Jolest]

Thanks AnnaBanana - I was finally able to save the downloaded ringtones after scouring these forums for a very long time. However, in my many attempts at this I may have caused a problem. When I view the two ringtones in the files folder, they were not saved as .mp3 files. they were saved as MMS_999dm. Any suggestions? Thanks.

How were you "looking" to see what the files were named?

If you were using Windows to check the files, it hides the file extensions by default (damn fool Microsoft idea)... If this is the case, you can tell it to stop hiding the file extensions in the Windows Explorer options dialog.

[louisedem]

On my phone, I looked in settings / files and they are listed there. Not inside a folder, just listed as MMS_71205dm. I believe these files are saved text messages. I finally sent verizon an email and was told you cannot buy a ringtone online and have it downloaded to a droid. It must be bought from your phone using vcast. I did and it worked perfectly. I suggested they display a warning online or just disable it.

[Bob Dammit]

On my phone, I looked in settings / files and they are listed there. Not inside a folder, just listed as MMS_71205dm. I believe these files are saved text messages. I finally sent verizon an email and was told you cannot buy a ringtone online and have it downloaded to a droid. It must be bought from your phone using vcast. I did and it worked perfectly. I suggested they display a warning online or just disable it.

Louisedem, don't listen to verizon on this one. They don't WANT you to have ringtones they CAN'T charge you for. There are ways around it.

[Jolest]

On my phone, I looked in settings / files and they are listed there. Not inside a folder, just listed as MMS_71205dm. I believe these files are saved text messages. I finally sent verizon an email and was told you cannot buy a ringtone online and have it downloaded to a droid. It must be bought from your phone using vcast. I did and it worked perfectly. I suggested they display a warning online or just disable it.

Louise,
There is NO reason for Android to disable it or to display a warning (unless the warning is to avoid trusting Verizon too much). The Verizon rep you emailed with was either ignorant or lying outright.

You CAN use ringtones bought online and they definitely do NOT need to be from VCAST. I have over a dozen non-standard ringtones I did NOT buy from Verizon. You just need to get them from a reliable source (be CAREFUL, not everything that shows up in a Google search is safe) and make sure they're standard MP3 files.

In addition to buying ringtones online, you can get free versions of most ringtones if you look carefully in the marketplace for an appropriate ringtone collection.

You can also make your own free if you already own the music. Just rip the song from the CD to an MP3 file, tweak it using a freeware audio-file editor (Audacity from audacity.sourceforge.net is a good one if you're using Windows), copy it to your SD card, and select it as a ringtone or alarmtone.

Finally, if you're using an Android phone and a Verizon rep tells you that you need to pay them more to do something as basic as this, think twice and then do some research... They're usually wrong.

Good luck.

[Bob Dammit]

There are also several free apps in the market place for ringtones too. I use "Ringtones" without an issue.