getting ringtones on verizon env2

Posted on by michael

Update 11/23/2009: I now have an env3 phone and I can say that the worst steps below are no longer an issue. If you put a file on a microSD card and plug that into the phone, the interface menu will immediately let you set it as a sound or ringtone. Verizon is moving in the correct direction in terms of no longer making stupid restrictions.

I recently upgraded my phone through my cell provider, Verizon. I picked up a nice LG enV2 (VX9100). As expected with Verizon, based on my previous RAZR experiences, getting one’s own ringtones on the phone takes some effort. But so far it is at least possible.

I was able to get my own files set as ringtones on my phone by using a microSD card to get the files from my computer to the phone. Then I texted them to myself so I could save it into ringtones. I’m sure this can be done via Bluetooth or a direct USB link, but this is the method I chose.

1. Pick up a microSD card and USB card reader. I chose a $14 set from Newegg.

2. Insert the microSD card into the phone’s microSD slot (really!). Note: Be careful where and how you do this. The card insertion pretty much requires the use of fingernails, and the spring mechanism to eject the card is quite happy to shoot it out if you slip while pushing it in.

3. On the phone choose Menu, 9. Settings & Tools, 9. Memory, 3. Card Memory, Options, Format. This will format the card, and it will also place some folders on it for My Sounds, My Videos, etc. I’m sure these are not special and can be created by hand, but I’ve not done extensive testing.

4. Remove the microSD card from the phone (carefully!), put it into the USB card reader, and insert it into the computer’s USB slot. This should come up like any other USB drive and be immediately accessible and writable.

5. Copy the desired files to the card. I used the My Sounds folder. The file format can be .wav or .mp3, and whatever else the phone will play, I’m sure. I used .wav.

6. Reinsert the microSD card into the phone.

7. On the phone choose Menu, 9. Settings & Tools, 9. Memory, 3. Card Memory, 5. My Sounds and verify the phone sees the files. This actually didn’t work right away for me the first time, but after a few minutes they showed up just fine. Since then it has been instant.

8. From the start screen now (hit END), choose Menu, 5. Media Center, 1. Music & Tones, 5. My Sounds, highlight your file (they should show up and you can see they have a different icon when accessed from the card), choose Options, 1. Send. Now you’re about to send it as a text. Choose Add or put in your phone number, put in some text, and send away!

9. Hopefully in a few moments the text will arrive. Once received and opened, choose Options, 4. Save As Ringtone.

The rest is basic from there!

80 thoughts on “getting ringtones on verizon env2”

  2. Do you know how long to song has to be mine was to long so I couldnt send the message. I used itunes and I have no clue how to shorten the song.

  3. Thanks for this info. I might add that there is a limit to the size of the file, so you might need to down-convert the MP3 file to get as much of it as you want on there. I think Verizon’s limit is 500K.

  4. I used a program called Audacity to cut out some of the song. Audacity is a free download. I then used a program called dbpoweramp to convert the mp3 to a lo-quality mp3 so I could send a bigger clip in the text message.

  5. thanks called verizon and they were real nasty called LG and they were worst just saying I had to buy ringtones I had a bunch of ring tones blue tooth previously so I knew that was not the truth.
    Thanks for the assistance.
    cd

  9. I was able to move a 5.6MB mp3 file from microsd card to the phone this way just fine.

  10. Thanks so much for this little tutorial! You have made me even happier with my new phone. For the record, I could not send the file via txt until it was under 500k.

  11. Michael: Great hack ! Which Micro SD card did you use ? Your YRL led to a $10.99 card and reader……Thanks in Advance!
    PS – Will this work for moving pix over as well ? I love Verizon Customer service but I sure don’t care for them charging me for even the pix I take…I had the same experience with the RAZR and have upgraded to the env2 like you….

  12. Wow! Michael’s instructions worked like a charm. Thank you so much for positing it. You’re AWSOME!

  13. i don’t know why they make this so hard, clearly they just want you to buy ringtones. thanks, you saved my head from exploding!

  14. it worked but man there should be an easier way… i told my wife she should of got a blackberry!!!

  16. you cant use Itunes on the phones. its only wav. and mp3 accessible. but instead of doing all that crap, just send go to http://www.myxer.com (no scam, all very good, you can pick leigth, and its very easy) hope it helps

  17. The latest test version of bitpim supports the enV2 now.
    I was able to transfer ringtones via bluetooth using bitpim with very little fuss.
    I did have to create an outgoing serial connection to the phone in the Bluetooth settings, but that might be a Vista issue.
    I also did manual detect on the phone in bitpim, but the auto-detection might work once an outgoing serial port is created.

  18. I have 2 songs in the “my music” folder that I can only play, and they won’t allow me to save as a ringtone … should I manually move these from “my music” to “my sounds” using a card reader, or does anyone know of another was to use purchased music as a ringtone? I paid for it, I feel like I should have the option of using it as a ringtone.

  19. This is a wonderful guide! I was having a heck of a time getting ringtones from my Moto Q9m to my girlfriend’s new Env2. They kept coming up as sounds, and I never thought of messaging them and saving them as ringtones! Great job!

  20. You can do this much easier. Go to http://www.phonezoo.com there you create a free account, and can make our own ringtones from music files on your computer. You can choose any 30 clip from the song. It will then send it to your phone via pix message, and you then can save it as a ringtone. To save it as a rington. open the message, click the option button and then select save as ringtone

  21. HOW TO CREATE RINGTONES FOR VERIZON ENV2 (and they work)
    Create the sound file
    Your sound file cannot be in MP3 format. (Even if you rename the extension, Verizon will see that it contains MP3 content, and block the file. It’s not clear why they won’t accept MP3 content, since the phone can play it.)
    WAV format is what worked for me. It also has to be 30 seconds or less, and have a sample rate of 22.050 KHz or less.
    I used the “WavePad Sound Editor” (it’s free) version 3.12 to trim my sound file to less than 30 seconds, add a fade at the end, and save it as WAV. I set “Save as type” to “Wave (*.wav)”, “Attributes” to “Microsoft ADPCM 22.050 KHz, 4 Bit, Mono”,and sample rate to 22.050 KHz
    I’ve also heard a lot of good things about the Audacity audio editor, which is also free.
    Sending the clip to your phone:
    Create a new text message (picture message), attach the ringtone, and send it to YOUR OWN NUMBER
    Once you hear the song start to play choose Options – Save as Ringtone

  27. Wow, that’s clever! I thought they intentionally separated the ringtones from the sounds so you couldn’t make your own. Thanks.

  28. Its even easier than that… If u put in the sd card, and record your fave song to it, just send it to yourself. You can save ringtone from there as you described earlier. NO USB HOOKUPS REQD… just record onto the phone. (i dont have the USB hookup and i figured there had to be a way around it…)

  29. Actually, I discovered that I could send one minute long ringtones to my phone using ventones.com. It’s free to sign up there and since I have the unlimited text and pix messages, it don’t cost me anything to send them. And if you really wanna be sure you’re not paying anything, you can make the ringtones at ventones and save them to your computer via a link they give you on the “send ringtone” page and save this file to your phone’s memory card as a sound file and text it to yourself. Easy as cake and FREE! WOOT!

  30. I recommend doing a memory check on the env2, in order for the phone to ‘see’ the new files:
    Menu, 9. Settings & Tools, 9. Memory, 3. Card Memory, 1. Memory Info.

  32. you cant send a text bigger then 1mb thats the cache. but it works and thanks for the heads up!

  34. Thanks for showing me how to add ringtones onto my phone 🙂 it works very well. Although, some of the songs I tried to add as ringtones don’t play. Like it would play from my sounds folder, but when I send it to myself as a text, there would be no sound. Anyone know why and how to fix it?

  38. i cant send or receive text messages.
    is there any other way to do this???
    i already created my own mp3 of the ringtone i desire.

  39. For the poster who mentioned that VZ blocks the Mp3 file format if sent from an email address, I found this to also be the case UNLESS you attach an MP3 and Picture in the same email attachment, then you can save either one or just the one you want.

  40. Ahhh Thanks so much for this, I just got this phone today and have been trying to figure it out ever since. 🙂

  41. When I try and send the files it tells me the file size limit is exceeded. The files are under a megabyte. I imagine a .wav file must be much larger?

  42. THANK YOU! for that1. i was lookin 4 away around their little dirty trick.
    Its not cool how Verizon kills my enV2’s bluetooth… anyone have issue’S WITH THE BLUE TOOTH ON THE ENv2?! i’ve only been able to pair with the wep200 bluetooth headset. i cant get it to pair with cpu,blackberry,nokia.
    Verizon Wireless? whats the deal?!

  45. this is great however I get a screen that asks for a 4 digit phone lock code . Do you know what that might be?
    thanks a bunch

  46. Or even better.. if you have verizon, you already have an e-mail account that you can receive text messages from. It’ll be in the format 3105551212@vzwpix.com (where 3105551212 is your phone number). It’ll save you a text message (for sending and receiving). AND better yet, you can attach MULTIPLE ringtones in the same e-mail.. just attach your mp3s or wavs and send away.. you’ll be able to scroll through all the sent mp3s/wavs and save individually.. ONE text message for multiple songs.. save your text messages!! 🙂

  47. First of all, THANK YOU! Until I found these instructions I was unable to figure out any way to add my own songs/ringtones to my phone. This was very helpful. I appreciate the step by step instructions.
    Now – I am with you until step 8/9. I have gone through all the previous steps correctly. Saved my intended ringtone as an mp3 to the “My Sounds” folder. I am able to access it via phone memory. But when I go to text it myself, it says it is sending a picture message? Then when the text arrives I try to select “Save as Ringtone” and it says “No Sound.” I have no idea why they think it is not a sound when clearly it is; it is playable on the phone and I am able to play it when I access card memory. But WHY won’t it let it be a ringtone? Help!

  48. I have the env2 and I can’t get around Verizon removing my mp3 attachments. Any suggestions? I have tried attaching a pic and ringtone as well as just the ringtone. HELP!! 🙂

  49. I used your ideas. used the sound recorder on the same phone as yours. saved it to sounds, then sent it to myself, and saved it as a ringtone. worked perfectly, and took about 2 minutes. I just saved a snippet of the song to be used as the ring since that’s all i needed. great idea. thanks

  51. actually, you can even use your full mp3s. if you have a usb cable, connect the phone to your computer using bitpim, a free software, and go into the file system. you will see a folder called brew, open that folder, another folder named mod, then 10889. click on the ringtones folder and when you go there right click and say new file. then choose the ringtone and voila….free ringtone

  53. Same Boat Lindsey: I have the env2 and I can’t get around Verizon removing my mp3 attachments. Any suggestions? I have tried attaching a pic and ringtone as well as just the ringtone. This bites.

  54. thanks for the great info. For anyone interested I have been testing a variety of songs and it appears that certain songs get stripped and won’t recieve correctly in the text message. Could be my paranoia or they scan the audio file and kill it if it is too new. For example, I attempted to load a new Metallica song off of their new album, Death Magnetic (tried two songs) and both failed, but I did get an older Metallica song to work. Kind of strange. Funny thing is, the song that worked was a much larger file size then the two that didn’t.

  55. Just an fyi from more testing, it seems the file attachement doesn’t much like spaces or special characters. Got all my files to load once I renamed them.

  56. hey michael,
    I followed the steps. It gives me an error message stating that files are too large. did you run into that?? i used an mp3 format. would a wav be smaller sized? if so, how do I convert the formats?

  57. Hi, I just did steps 1-3 but now when I put my card into the card reader for my computer it says there is no image file found and does not boot, the card worked fine before I formatted it with the EnV2, but now it dosen’t connect to the computer.
    How can I undo this?

  59. Everyone read Jay’s comment…to sum up:
    Don’t worry about all these steps- just email the file to (yournumber)@VZWPIX.com
    When you get the message, Options>save as ringtone. The file can be in mp3 format. I have not tested the maximum length but I just successfully sent a 350kb clip.

  61. umm is there a way to send this as an actuall text and not a picture message. I don’t got unlimited pic messaging w/ my plan. but text is fine. i know you can add sounds to the text but my sounds aren’t there. only weird things like “beep once” ect…

  63. Thanks so much for this info. I’ve been trying for months to figure this out! 🙂

  64. Excellent! THank you so much. Now it’s just a matter of editing down some songs and BAM!

  67. Hey. I’m trying to get this to work on my own phone – but every time I try to send the song to myself, it gives me an error “Maximum file size exceeded”. The other files in the My Sounds folder are all 1-7 kb – is there something to bypass this? I’ve reduced the mp3 quality down to 1 meg for my song…

  68. You are my hero. I have looked this up a million times before I finally found this link, and I’ve never been so happy to find a link in my entire life.
    I have tried everything; programs after programs after programs, and this was all I had to do. THANK YOU!

  72. Hey Anonymous, BitPim crashes the phone when sending to the phone with phone software version VX910V07. So STFU.
    Thanks for this.

  74. Sounds so simple compared to some other procedures! Can’t wait to try this!! I never though to just text it to myself. Guess I didn’t figure it would actually work.

  76. make your own ringtone and send it from your email address to your phone and the tone can be any size. go to your email like normal attach the ringer and email it to your phone # (ie 1234567890@vzwpix.com).

  78. Excellent question, Tweety!
    I actually do have an env3 now as my primary phone. And I’m happy to report that you don’t need any real tricks at all to get ringtones on your phone.
    You’re correct. If you just put your files on a microSD card, options in the phone interface now let you jump right to setting it as a ringtone or sound.

  79. hey mike
    i have picture messaging disabled, but i have the enV2 as well. is there a way to get the ringtones without having to download some stupid program or sending them? thanks
    c

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