GitHub - Frohrer/tonedrop: Transfer ringtones to iPhone over USB — no iTunes needed

Transfer ringtones to iPhone over USB — no iTunes needed.

Features

• Drag & drop any audio file — mp3, wav, flac, aac, m4a, mp4, ogg, and more
• Auto-converts to proper iPhone ringtone format (44100 Hz AAC with iTunes metadata)
• Properly registered — writes a real Ringtones.plist entry (GUID, name, duration), so iOS lists the tone under its own name rather than as a raw filename
• Manage ringtones on device — browse, play, rename, download, and delete
• Custom naming — set the ringtone name before uploading
• No iTunes, no jailbreak, no developer mode — works with any iPhone over USB

Download

Grab the latest release from the Releases page.

• macOS: Download the .dmg file

The app is unsigned. Releases are not signed with an Apple Developer ID, so macOS will refuse to open it on a double-click ("Apple could not verify Tonedrop is free of malware"). To run it anyway: drag the app to /Applications, then right-click it → Open → Open, which prompts once and remembers the choice. From a terminal, xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Tonedrop.app does the same thing.

This is Gatekeeper telling you the truth — the build genuinely isn't signed by anyone. If you'd rather not take that on faith, build it yourself from source with npm run dist:mac; it's the same output.

Platform support. Released builds target macOS. The device transport already speaks usbmux on both platforms (/var/run/usbmuxd on macOS, TCP 27015 on Windows, which Apple Mobile Device Support provides). The remaining gap is audio conversion: it shells out to macOS's afconvert/afinfo, so a Windows build needs a bundled encoder. Tracked in issue #1.

Requirements

• macOS (Windows planned — see above)
• iPhone connected via USB data cable
• "Trust This Computer" accepted on the iPhone (one-time)

Usage

1. Connect your iPhone via USB
2. Open Tonedrop — your device should appear with a green dot
3. Drop audio files onto the app (or click to browse)
4. Edit the ringtone name if you want
5. Click Transfer
6. Click Restart iPhone when prompted — iOS requires a reboot to load new ringtones
7. After restart, go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Ringtone on your iPhone

Managing existing ringtones

Click the On Device tab to:

• Preview ringtones with the play button
• Select and Save to Mac to download them
• Select and Delete to remove them
• Double-click a name to rename it

How it works

Tonedrop communicates directly with your iPhone over USB using the same protocols as iTunes/Finder:

1. usbmux — discovers connected devices
2. lockdown — authenticates using the pairing record from "Trust This Computer"
3. AFC (Apple File Conduit) — reads/writes files on the device
4. Ringtones.plist — registers ringtones with proper GUID, name, and duration
5. Diagnostics relay — restarts the device to load new ringtones

Building from source

npm install
npm start

# Run tests
npm test

# Build a macOS app
npm run dist:mac

Releasing (maintainers)

Pushing a v* tag triggers the GitHub Actions release workflow. For a distributable build that opens without Gatekeeper warnings, the app must be signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized. Configure these repository secrets:

When these are present the workflow signs and notarizes automatically. They are not currently configured, so published builds are unsigned — see the note in Download.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.