Apple’s first developer beta of iOS 26 hides a small but crowd-pleasing surprise. There’s a brand-new Use as Ringtone button that turns almost any audio clip into a full system ringtone in seconds. It’s the simplest route Apple has ever offered for personalizing the iPhone’s soundtrack.
Find an audio file inside the Files app, Voice Memos, or even an iMessage attachment, tap Share, then scroll to the bottom of the sheet. You’ll find the new feature nestled among familiar shortcuts like Save to Files, as reported by Macworld. One tap copies the track into Settings > Sounds & Haptics, where it appears at the top of the list, ready for single-contact or global use, no syncing, slicing, or sideloading required.
No More GarageBand Gymnastics
The change is massive for anyone who has ever tried to make their iPhone sound unique. Until now, the workflow resembled a mini-DAW tutorial: trim your song to 40 seconds, convert it to an M4R file, load it into the Music app on a Mac or PC, then finally sync over a cable. Plenty of people simply gave up and stuck with the stock tones or paid for the rare ringtone still lurking in the iTunes Store. iOS 26 erases all that friction.
In the beta, Apple’s new shortcut accepts common formats such as MP3, WAV, and M4A. Clips longer than 40 seconds are automatically trimmed, and the original file stays right where it was. Removing a tone is just as simple, swipe left on its name in the Ringtones list and tap Delete. The same flow works on iPadOS 26, so tablet users finally escape the ringtone maze too.
This small tweak slots neatly into Apple’s wider push for quality-of-life upgrades in iOS 26. Other early discoveries include one-time-code autofill from Gmail and WhatsApp, a toggle to block accidental misdials, and a redesigned Control Center that surfaces frequently used toggles. Taken together, they show Apple focusing on sanding away annoyances rather than overhauling the interface.
Developers can install iOS 26 beta 1 now through the Apple Developer Program, while the first public beta should hit in July. The finished update will almost certainly arrive in September alongside the iPhone 17 lineup. Beta builds can break banking apps and chew through batteries, so casual users may want to sit tight, but for ringtone tinkerers, waiting just got a lot harder.
After years of kludges and cables, personalizing an iPhone’s ring finally feels like an Apple-grade experience, and it takes less time than the phone needs to start vibrating.