When I had written an article which covered all the iPhone Apps that helped you add custom ringtones to your iPhone rather than paying Apple the additional 99c to add a song as a ringtone, surprisingly more than 15% of the readers of iPhone Hacks who took the poll on which iPhone App they will be using to add custom ringtones to their iPhone chose "SendSong", a neat little utility and as the name suggest allows you to not only send a song from your iPhone library to a friend via email or use it as a ringtone developed by Erica Sadun over @ Tuaw now a iPhone hacking legend.
When iPhone OS v1.1.1 was released like all iPhone third-party apps even SendSong had become unusable. However I guess looking at the popularity of SendSong, Erica has updated her creation so that it also works with iPhone OS v1.1.1 (see the poll results @ this link).
For those who don't know what this iPhone App is all about, lets go back in time. Song Sender which was the name given to the iPhone application when it was born allows you browse through your iPhone music libraries and to not only send a song from your iPhone library to a friend via email or use it as a ringtone.
In fact, I realized that when I written the article on SendSong I had wrongly credited the hacking effort to folks @ Nullriver (apologies Erica).
You should be able to install this app using Installer.app using the Community Resources package (in case you have not already got it running on iPhone OS v1.1.1 read these instructions).
After installing, when you run Song Sender it will read through your iPhone's music library to create a scrolling list of songs. When you tap on any song, you will be prompted with the two additional choices i.e. "Send to Email" and "Send to Ringtones". It is as simple as that to either send a song to your friend as an email or add it as a ringtone.
However before you go to try it out here are some words of caution from Erica on her blog:
"Here are the caveats: First, you can only send m4a files to ringtones. Any other file type and SendSong will complain. Second, sometimes it takes time for the Ringtones to get recognized. I've tried reboots and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. I've also quit SendSong, checked out my tones--found they didn't work--went back into SendSong, added another tone, returned and suddenly the tones did work. It's kinda freaky and I'm not sure why this happens. I suspect it's about forcing the system to reload all the info from the Ringtones.plist in /var/root/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes."
In case you need further assistance with this hack do check with Erica Sudan at Tuaw using this link.
Thanks Erica for updating SendSong for iPhone OS v1.1.1.
Screenshots of the UI of Song Sender below (from previous version):
Rumor has it that Nullriver is about to update. I have read all the links and news at TUAW. IT HAS BEEN INDICATED at the Nullriver link that no hacks or jailbreak is not needed to install the Installer Apps. Although no date was posted regarding the installation wss not found at the site. I am confused because i thought to install third party applications we need to jailbreak it. According to the rumor at TUAW that the update could be available today or soon. Please shine a light on this one. Would love to install the 3rd party applications on my virgin iphone with the firmware 1.1.1 without having to jailbreak it. Please provide answers to my questions on these Nullriver upcoming update. Thanks. Keep up the good work.
Well, actually, you CAN use other files than .m4a for ringtones.
I have all mp3 files on my iPhone, I have about 10 of them as ringtones.
i have jailbreaked my phone but how do i put the program onto my phone. i have gotten the installer app on my phone by using the newest jailbreak method by going to jailbreakme.com
once you download the installer app. download the community app. than look for sendsong through the new folders.
does anyone else lose all there ringtones when they sync to itunes
never could get this one to work. I can send it to ringtones but the ringtone never works. what am I missing???
I install sendsong but when i try to open it just pulls up a white screen then closes and goes back to the spring board
"when i try to open it just pulls up a white screen then closes and goes back to the spring board"
You need to install BSD Subsystem, that will fix it.
I got the app to load a few mp3's and I could play them while checking my ringtones. When I associated the ringtone with the caller it won't play. When I tried sending AAC files to the ringtones you can't get them to even preview???
Not ready to give up yet!
I have got send song to send an m4a file to the ringtones section of itunes and it will play the tune in both send song and also in the ipod section on the iphone, but when I ring the iphone from another mobile or landline number with the tune set as default and also as the dialers ringtone, it never plays the tune, it reverts to the 'marimba' ringtone ecerytime. What am I missing??? Can anyone help?
Cheers!
Dez ( new iphone owner )
I experienced the same problem that the above poster did… except I sent an mp3 file as a ringtone. It went through and showed up in the Ringtones section, but whenever I tried calling it would play the Marimba ringtone. I rebooted the iPhone and that seemed to solve the problem though… it plays my ringtone now.
The song sender works it goes to the ringtone and u can c it on the list but if u set as a ringtone it won't ring. Does anyone know y?
thank you very much.
yea all u have 2 do is after u send it 2 the ringtone section and select it as ur ringtone just reboot the iphone and it should work…hehehe i had the same prob and a friend helped me out. One question i do have is how does the "share" function of send song work? i dont even have 1 clue as to how it works anyone know how to use it or got any ideas? thanks
Yup!
Reboot the iPhone and the ringtone works!
I had the same problems that several people list here but my problems were with custom sounds that I created. They wouldn't show up in the ringtones section at all. But, when I went into itunes and entered into the info section of the song and put in the artist name, album title and the track number it showed up and worked just fine. The info you put in doesn't have to be accurate, just put anything in those fields…I did and it works great. Try it and see if that helps.
I also get a white screen on startup and I have BSD Subsystem installed. I installed using Cydia.
I have got the sendsong app – to start it went to the default ring tone – I rebooted and now it says on my personal ringtone but it doesn't make any sound I have tried rebooting again but no joy – can anyone shed any light please?
Wow! Finally something easy and simple. All I wanted to do was to set my ring tone to a song on my iPhone and this was it
Thanks again!
heeeelp. i've tried rebooting my pc several times but my ringtone doesnt seem to work. waaaah!
i ve just got a iphone and trying to get a ringtone on the dam thing,all this info on different apps is mind bending and all i want is a simple step by step idiot proof way of doing it or some1 to talk me through it
i have cydia too but i couldnt find SENDSONG app..please tell me how to install SENDSONG app. im using 3Gs
thanks