Revolution- Ring Tones

[HazelEyedGemini]

My ring tones that I have set for my contacts keeps changing without me doing anything.  Does anyone know why and how to permanetly fix them?

[Ann154]

Do you have your custom ringtones saved in these folders on the sd card? That is the only way I know to get an android phone to consistently remember custom ringtones.

In the root of the sd card:
/ media / audio / ringtones
/ media / audio / notifications
/ media / audio / alarms

[HazelEyedGemini]

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by this:

I know to look in the sd card but not sure how. I feel real stupid.

In the root of the sd card:
/ media / audio / ringtones
/ media / audio / notifications
/ media / audio / alarms

[Ann154]

Granted I didn't write out my usual spiel for this topic.

What I was trying to suggest, is that in the sd card you should have or create that folder structure. In the root of the sd card, create a folder called "media" (without the quotes, for all). Then create a folder called "audio". Under that create "ringtones", "notifications", and "alarms". Then put your personal tones in the appropriate folder. Those you want to use as phone call ringtones put in the "ringtones" folder. Messaging, email, gmail, calendar tones in the "notifications" folder. Clock, alarm clock tones in the "alarms" folder.

The reason I think that it works is because it is the same folder structure android uses in the system folders. It defaults to looking in those folders. Anything else and the phone tends to forget to look elsewhere.

If you don't have one already, you can download a file explorer from the Market. Astro and Estrongs are some of the most well known ones.

[HazelEyedGemini]

I never did that. I'm not sure how to do that. I know most if not all of my ring tones are on my media card.

[Ann154]

You can use one of those file explorers to move or copy the files to that folder structure. When the phone rescans the SD card, it will automatically add the tones to the appropriate ringtone selection list.

You can also connect your phone to a computer as mass storage drive/disc drive. Then you can use the file explorer on the computer to make the adjustments.

[HazelEyedGemini]

Where do you get the file explorer from?

[HazelEyedGemini]

Most of my ring tones are on my sd card.  Except for like 5 or 6 that are saved to the phone.

Can you give me a step by step on how to do that?

[Ann154]

I am not sure if you can save anything to the phone's internal memory except for installing applications. It really depends on how large it is and how the phone manufacturer setup the access. Pre-installed ringtones will be the phone's system memory and isn't accessible to the average user.

Here is a Android Market link to a file explorer for the phone. http://market.android.com/details?id=com.estrongs.android.pop

[HazelEyedGemini]

 I'll just buy those ring tones off of ITunes and load them in my phone.

So how do I do this excatly?  Can you give me step by step?  So I know what I'm doing and not going to screw this up.

Thank you.

[Ann154]

When you added Itunes to mix, that created a whole new questions for me. I have never needed to use that program nor do I ever plan to.

Are these files DRM free mp3 files or something else.

Can you connect the phone to the computer as a mass storage drive (or connect as a disk drive)? If not, can you safely remove the sd card and read the card with a card reader on the computer.

With either of those above connections, you should be able to drag and drop the ringtones files onto the sd card in the folders I posted above. You can probably even move them from wherever you stored them on the sd card in the first place to these folders and be good. Once the phone rescans the sd card, the ringtones will be available in the ringtone selection list. Then you can assign them to the contacts.

It is fairly simple file management operations stuff. Where exactly am I not explaining it clearly or what is it that you are confused about?

[HazelEyedGemini]

I downloaded that File extender but didn't know where to go after that.  I can connect as a mass storage.  That's how I got my ring tones to load to my phone.  I'm using Rings Extender for the ring tones.

[HazelEyedGemini]

When I connect the phone to the computer it says SD Card unmonuted or not present.  I don't know if that's going to not make it work.

[Ann154]

Are you see this on the phone itself or are you see this on the computer?

This is normal behavior on the phone. The sd card is unmounted so that you can view the contents of the SD card with your computer.

[HazelEyedGemini]

It's on the phone.  I know they're on there.

[HazelEyedGemini]

Not all of them are on there.  I just looked.  Oh boy.

[Ann154]

Okay connect the phone to the computer as mass storage. Use your file explorer on your computer to navigate to the sd card and explore the contents of SD card. Find the ringtones you put on there in the first place and move them to the folder structure mentioned earlier (sd card drive:\media\audio\ringtones) even if you have to create it on the sd card.


The file explorer app from the Android Market is to be used when you are not connected to a computer in mass storage mode. It functions similarly to a computer's file explorer.

[HazelEyedGemini]

I think I got the hang of it. I'll let you know.

[HazelEyedGemini]

Didn't work.  Now when I go back and try to put the right songs there it says unknown ringtone.

[HazelEyedGemini]

What am I doing wrong?  I did what you told me and how you told me but it still not working.

[Ann154]

If you can be patient, let me see about getting some screenshots posted tonight. I have to transfer some custom ringtones and notification tones onto the sd card for my Droid Eris. The current sd card in that phone is clean and doesn't have any of the folder structure for ringtones so it should hopefully be a good example for you.