How to make a TikTok sound your iPhone ringtone

Yes, as long as you can get the video onto your iPhone. What works and what doesn't:

• A video that TikTok lets you save: the easiest case. The sound comes with it.
• A sound you only added to Favorites: that's a bookmark inside TikTok, not a file. Open a video that uses the sound and save that video instead.
• A video with saving turned off by its creator: a screen recording captures the picture and the sound (see below).
• Music on TikTok is licensed for TikTok. Using a clip as the ringtone on your own phone is a personal use; sharing it on as a ringtone pack is not, so keep it for yourself.

1. 1In TikTok, open the video with the sound you want.
2. 2Tap the Share arrow on the right.
3. 3Tap Save video. The first time, allow TikTok to add to your Photos.
4. 4The video appears in the Photos app, in Recents.

If there's no Save video button, the creator has turned downloads off. You can screen-record instead: open Control Center, tap Screen Recording, wait for the countdown, play the video in TikTok, then tap the red indicator at the top to stop. The recording is saved in Photos with the app's sound; the microphone stays off unless you turn it on by touching and holding the record button.

A saved TikTok video may end with a short TikTok logo clip with its own sound. You'll leave that part out when you trim.

iPhone can't set a video as a ringtone directly, so the audio comes out first. All of this works with apps from Apple:

1. 1Take the sound out of the video with a Shortcuts shortcut that uses Encode Media with Audio Only and saves the result to Files. You build it once and reuse it from the share sheet; our guide on turning a video's sound into a ringtone has every step of the shortcut.
2. 2Trim the audio to the part you want, under 30 seconds. GarageBand can do this: drag the edges of the region on the track.
3. 3On iOS 26 or later: in Files, touch and hold the trimmed audio file, tap Share, then Use as Ringtone.
4. 4On iOS 17 or 18: in GarageBand's My Songs, touch and hold the project, tap Share › Ringtone › Export, then choose to use it as your Standard Ringtone.
5. 5The new tone sits at the top of Settings › Sounds & Haptics › Ringtone. From there you can also give it to one person in Contacts › Edit › Ringtone.

A trend sound that's catchy in a feed can sound thin or abrupt from a phone in your pocket. A few rules help:

• Start on the hook. A ringtone always plays from second zero, and most calls are answered within a few rings, so the recognizable part has to come first.
• Stay under 30 seconds. Longer files are refused or don't show the ringtone option.
• Skip the talking. If someone speaks over the music in the video, choose a stretch where only the music plays.
• Even out the volume and add a short fade-out, so it neither clips nor stops mid-beat before it repeats.
• Test it for real: call yourself from another phone before you rely on it.

The Shortcuts and GarageBand route works, but it means three apps and several hand-offs for one ringtone. Ringsy keeps it in one screen:

1. 1Tap Video and pick the TikTok you saved (or, in Photos, tap Share › Ringsy).
2. 2The video's sound opens on a waveform. Best part suggests the most energetic, most recognizable stretch, or you drag the yellow frame yourself, zoom in and nudge the start and end by 0.1 second.
3. 3Add a fade in or out. Even out volume is on by default, and Repeat to fill 30 s loops a short sound.
4. 4Tap Save & set as ringtone. On iOS 26 the share sheet opens with “Use as Ringtone”; on iOS 17–18 Ringsy walks you through the GarageBand export and also gives you an .m4r file.

The video is only read for its sound and stays unchanged, and nothing is uploaded: the sound is decoded, trimmed and rendered on the iPhone.

• Maximum ringtone length on iPhone: 30 seconds (Ringsy caps the selection at 29.9).
• iOS 26 and later: ringtones are set from the share sheet with “Use as Ringtone”, no computer needed.
• iOS 17 and 18: GarageBand exports a ringtone on the phone; a computer is optional.
• Songs from Apple Music and other streaming services are DRM-protected and can't be made into ringtones by any app, even when you heard them on TikTok.
• The same tone can also be a text tone, an alarm sound or one person's ringtone.