Restoring Ringtones

Today I synced up an app from iTunes from my Mac with my iPhone. It removed all my personalized ringtones. Grrrr! I heard this could happen but I needed the app. Anyway...

When I tried to restore my ringtones from my mac I got this message: Are you sure you want to remove existing music, movies, TV shows, books and tones from this iPhone and sync with this iTunes Library? Music, moves, TV shows, book and tones synced to iPhone from other iTunes libraries will be removed and items will be synced from this iTunes Library.

It kind of scared me because I don't know exactly what it means and I am not very good with iTunes. If it's no big deal, I'll try it.

Otherwise, I was told to go to iTunes.com/restore-tones on my iPhone. It won't load up and has a message that says, in essence, there is a robot.txt on my phone not allowing it to load up the url.

Anyone know anything about this kind of thing?

Thanks.

You can restore ringtones by making sure that you only do just that.... First, make sure your device is selected and then click on summary. Now select "manually manage music and videos", and "sync only checked songs and videos". Also unselect "Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected". After doing that, highlight "tones" and then check the box that says "all tones" or "selected tones" (whichever you prefer), then check the box that says "sync tones". Then go to the bottom and select "sync" and wait. That will only sync your ringtones and nothing else.

Never, never, allow iTunes to automatically sync anything as that will lead to a loss of music, videos, tones, books, and anything else you don't want removed. Apple really needs to make iTunes easier to use and understand. Most folks get caught up in automatic syncing because they don't understand what iTunes is doing. Anyway, let us know if all the above works for you.

By the way, a third party application works better for syncing. Check out iMazing 2 and iExplorer. Both are great to use but will cost you around $35 or so.

First of all, thank you for help. Your instructions were very clear.


OK, here’s where I get stuck. When you told me to “highlight tones and then check all tones or selected tones. I have two choices. First under “summary” and “tones” it gives me the choice to check “all tones or selected tones” as you mentioned. But all tones is already checked and it won’t let me change it even though it shows “selected tones” below this. Plus none of my ringtones are shown anyway.

Also, below all this is a heading “on my device”. There is also the choice of “tones” here but it only shows one of my ringtones. I have seen the others but I don’t remember how I got there.

If I can get out of this loop, perhaps I can finish your instructions. Sorry, I really hate iTunes!!

OK, I just clicked on a little arrow by my phone and it took me to all my ring tones but there was no way to sync them and no way to get back to the page I was on. I can’t even get back to that main iTunes page. I don’t want to take up too much of your time but this is ridiculous.

Where are your ringtones located at? I was assuming they were on your Mac? Here's my setup:

I have a separate folder on my iMac under the main "Music" folder called "ringtones". I store all my ringtones there so that when I select to sync ringtones to either one of my iPhones, that folder opens automatically. I keep all my ringtones in their original .mp3 format and only the ones that I wish to be synced I have as .m4r. iTunes will only recognize those ringtones in the proper format (.m4r).

Yes, they are on my mac. When I click on "tones" they come up under the title "my ring tones" though I can't find any folder called that. I have a feeling I am going to have to get help from someone who can look over my shoulder. It's getting too complicated and I don't want to take up your time. I am new to ringtones and barely know iTunes so I can't tell you where they are or how they got there.

Thanks so much for your time.

the only way I googled is itunes.com/restore-tones - you should contact Apple support and ask about this robot.txt, they should assist.

opic Review (Newest First)
Today, 08:06 AMJason Samuelson
the only way I googled is itunes.com/restore-tones - you should contact Apple support and ask about this robot.txt, they should assist.


Apple should assist but they don't without being paid for it. Also, I find their Discussion section in the Community almost worthless. That's why I came here.

I restored my Purchased Ringtones using Settings, Sounds, Ringtones, Download all Purchased Ringtones.

The problem is that some of them are now duplicated. Is there any way to remove the duplicates please?

Using iOS11.1 (15B93) on an iPhone 6s+

I tried iMazing but could not find any way to add or remove Ringtones in that, so I still have duplicates