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How to Put Ringtones on a Blackberry 8703e

I don’t actually own a Crackberry, but my girlfriend does, which makes me the default technical support representative for RIM. When it was decided that the Blackberry comes without a single reasonable ringtone, I began to look into installing alternatives. Here’s what I found.

  • This particular device can use basic mp3 files. I’ve read online that not all models can.
  • They have to be short. I haven’t experimented much, but at least 15 seconds will fit.
  • They have to be small. Again, I haven’t done much experimentation. I’ve read that 120k is the limit. The file I used came out to 96k.
  • They have to be accessible from a webpage. If you run your own website, you’re probably all set. If not, you can probably do everything you need with Google Pages.


The Steps:

  1. Pick out your content. You’re not going to be able to do this with DRM’d content, so you’ll have to find something you can rip off a CD or something you already have unprotected.
  2. Cut it down. For this step, I used Quicktime Pro, but there are lots of other options out there. Just open the file, use those little marks at the bottom of the time line to make your selection, then choose Edit > Trim to Selection. I’ve read that the limit is 15 seconds, but I haven’t tested the limits here. You might be able to use more.
  3. Save the file out as a wave. Use iTunes (or an app of your choice) to convert it to an MP3. Go for 64 kbps or lower. You’re not going to get great performance out of the little speaker there, so there’s no sense in wasting space. Remember that the file size needs to end up less than 120kB.
  4. Put it online. Upload the file to your web server and put a link to it on a page somewhere. I just made a simple HTML page that contains only the link to my file and put it somewhere where it won’t be stumbled upon.
  5. Download it. Using the web browser on your handheld, navigate to the web page that links to your mp3 file. Click on the link and choose Get Link. It will download the file and show a player. Click the button with the three horizontal lines and choose save.
  6. Select it. Go into the profiles menu and choose your new mp3 file as your ringtone

This entry was posted on Monday, April 2nd, 2007 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Geek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “How to Put Ringtones on a Blackberry 8703e”

  1. Melissa Says:
    July 28th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

    Thanks!

  2. Walter Says:
    August 3rd, 2007 at 7:37 am

    HI,

    I tried your solution the other day and was quite excited about trying to upload a ringtone to my wife’s BB. The problem is that the browser can’t download the ringtone after a try to get the link. I get error 406,

    any other ideas you may have are welcome.

    thanks.

  3. Karen Says:
    August 11th, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    Hi and thanks a ton!

    This worked for me, but not through Google Pages. I kept getting one of those goofy mime-octet/stream errors, so I used a friend’s website.

    I was able to upload a file that was 124k, so I’m not quite sure exactly where that size limitation officially maxes out.

    Take care.

  4. seljo Says:
    September 14th, 2007 at 11:51 am

    If you don’t have a web site, this may be an easier option…

    If you have a gmail account, send it to that account. Then, logon via the web on your BB (not the gmail app that you can download). Switch to the “basic html” version instead of the default mobile version. Go to the message and download the attachment.

    Does anyone know how to get to the directory on the BB and delete unwanted ring tones? i believe it said it was saving it to \home\files\tunes\ or something like that. How do I browse that to remove some I don’t want?

  5. Gerard Says:
    October 9th, 2007 at 10:57 am

    I’ve been doing this for a year with my Verizon Blackberry 8703e, and it works great. I am able to delete downloaded MP3 and WAV files by going to Profiles and then Show Tunes option. You can listen to them and delete them from there. I have also successfully downloaded files up to 600KB and they work fine, but anything much bigger seems to fail when you try to save it.

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