OPUS to M4R Converter

How to Convert OPUS to M4R Online

1. Upload Your OPUS File: Drag and drop the .opus file onto the page or click "+ Add Files". WhatsApp voice notes, Discord and web-call recordings and any other Opus-in-Ogg audio work, and a handful of clips can be converted in one batch.
2. Pick the Seconds You Want with Trim: Open Trim, set the Start time to the moment the line you want begins, and set Duration to 30 seconds or less. Seconds (4.2) and HH:MM:SS.sss are both accepted, and the note under Duration repeats Apple's 30-second guidance for ringtones.
3. Match the Settings to a Voice Source: For speech, set Audio Channel to Mono and choose a modest rate under File Compression: Constant Bitrate runs from 8 to 384 kbps, Variable Bitrate offers five AAC bands from 20k-32k up to 96k-112k, and Custom Bitrate or Specific file size take an exact figure. Quality Preset is the hands-off alternative.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" and save the .m4r. The upload travels over HTTPS, the AAC encode runs on our servers, and the files are deleted automatically after a few hours. No sign-up, no watermark.

Why OPUS Files End Up as Ringtones

Opus is the audio codec standardised by the IETF as RFC 6716 in 2012. It was built for real-time voice as well as music, and it holds up well at low bitrates, which is why chat and calling apps adopted it. A .opus file is Opus audio inside an Ogg container, and the places you meet one are mostly conversational:

• WhatsApp voice notes. WhatsApp records voice messages as Opus, so a voice note you save or forward out of the app usually arrives as an .opus file. On Android they sit in WhatsApp's "Voice Notes" media folder; on an iPhone, the share sheet can save one to Files.
• Discord and web calls. Discord's voice chat runs on Opus, and browser-based calling built on WebRTC uses it too, so clips from those recordings are often .opus.
• Podcasts and streams. Some podcasters and streaming tools export Opus because it keeps speech small.

That makes OPUS the natural source for a very personal kind of ringtone: a friend's laugh, a child saying "Dad, pick up!", or a running joke from a group chat, assigned to that person's contact. The iPhone, though, only lists custom tones that arrive as .m4r, which is AAC (AAC-LC) audio in an MPEG-4 container with the ringtone extension. Converting decodes the Opus and re-encodes it as AAC.

Be realistic about the sound: a voice note was compressed for messaging, so the ringtone will sound like the voice note did in the chat, no better. If you want the clip as an ordinary audio file instead, OPUS to M4A makes the same AAC audio with the music extension; Android users can simply use OPUS to MP3, since Android ringtones are usually MP3 or OGG rather than M4R.

OPUS vs M4R: Format Comparison

Settings That Suit Each Kind of Opus Clip

Size is bitrate × seconds ÷ 8, so 64 kbps × 30 s ÷ 8 = 240 KB, plus a little container overhead. Raising the bitrate cannot restore detail the voice-note encoder already removed; for speech it only makes the file larger. If the clip is quiet or starts with a pause, trimming to the exact words helps far more than a higher rate.

Setting the Ringtone on Your iPhone

To move the .m4r onto the phone, the usual routes are: connect the iPhone to a Mac and drag the file onto the iPhone in the Finder sidebar (macOS Catalina or later), or use iTunes on Windows. Apple's own route works on the phone alone: save the file to Files, import it into GarageBand, then Share > Ringtone (Apple Support). Choose it under Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Ringtone (Apple iPhone User Guide), or give it to one person in Contacts: open the contact, tap Edit, then Ringtone or Text Tone.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I make a WhatsApp voice note into a ringtone for that contact?

Yes, and it is one of the best uses of this page. Save the voice note out of WhatsApp as an .opus file, upload it here, trim to the part you want, convert to M4R and add it to the iPhone. Then open the person in Contacts, tap Edit and choose the new tone under Ringtone. Only use recordings that the people in them are happy to hear played aloud.

How long can the ringtone be?

Apple says iPhone ringtones can be up to 30 seconds long, and GarageBand shortens a longer ringtone automatically when it exports it; the GarageBand for iPhone User Guide gives 30 seconds as the maximum exported length. Voice clips are usually much shorter, which is fine: a three-second clip simply repeats while the phone rings.

Will the ringtone sound worse than the original voice note?

Only very slightly, if at all. Opus and AAC are both lossy, so this is a lossy-to-lossy transcode, but at 48-64 kbps mono AAC there is enough room to carry everything a voice note contains. What you will hear is the voice note's own character: a phone microphone, a messaging-grade encode and whatever room it was recorded in.

Why can't I just pick the .opus file as a ringtone?

iOS builds its Ringtone list from tones in its own format, and a custom tone has to be an .m4r that was added through Finder, iTunes or GarageBand. An .opus file in Files is not offered as a ringtone, whatever app made it.

Should I choose Mono or Stereo?

Mono for voice. Voice notes are recorded in mono, so a stereo output would just store the same signal twice. Keep Original only when the source is stereo music or a stereo recording where the left-right placement matters.

My Telegram voice message is .oga, not .opus. Which page do I use?

Use OGA to M4R. .oga is the audio-only Ogg extension, and voice messages saved from Telegram often use it even though the audio inside is Opus. The result is the same kind of M4R either way.

Does M4R carry the audio differently from M4A?

No. Both are AAC in an MPEG-4 container; we write M4R with the same MPEG-4 muxer used for M4A, and ffprobe reports AAC LC in an MP4 file with major brand M4A . The .m4r extension is what tells iOS and Finder the file is a tone. To turn a tone back into Opus, see M4R to OPUS.

Are my voice recordings kept private?

Voice notes are personal, so this matters. Files are uploaded over an encrypted (TLS) connection, processed on our servers and deleted automatically a few hours later. They are never shared or made public, and you do not need an account.