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Back in the days when I owned a normal, everyday flip phone, one of my favorite things was to create custom ringtones and text alerts for each contact. It let me know what was coming before I even pulled the phone out of my pocket. Call from work? Fuhgetabout it. I could just reach in my pocket, silence the call, and leave it be.
Once I picked up my BlackBerry, though, I didn’t find that luxury easy to come by. There are profiles, sure. But there didn’t seem to be a straightforward way to set alerts for specific contacts. It took a little trial and error, and a lot of Googling, before I finally got it down.
Setting just a ringtone for a specific contact
This is actually easy, though those coming from standard cell phones might not be used to the language. If you just want to change the ringtone for a specific contact, just go to the Profiles icon, and click the trackball. This brings up your normal list of profiles. Scroll all the way down to Advanced and click in the trackball.
Once there, hit the Menu button, and go to New Exception. Give it a name, and then scroll down to the From field. Click in the trackball and hit Add Name. This will allow you to add a contact from your address book.
To keep things simple, you can just check the Customer Phone Tune box, and change the tone to whatever you want. Then hit Save. You’ll notice on the Advanced page along the bottom, it will say Use Active Profile Except For: followed by a checkbox for Important Calls, and one for your new exception.
Don’t misunderstand, though. The active profile will still be used, as long as you left that in the Use Profile field in the Exception page. Only the ringtone will change. So if you have your active profile set to vibrate three times and then ring, that’s what the exception will do. The only change is that the ringtone will be different.
Creating a new profile for further customization
If you want to change the way the phone rings, or add other custom alerts for a contact, you’ll have to create a new profile. You can do this by pressing the Menu button in the Advanced screen. A menu will pop up. You’ll select New Profile.
Give the profile a name. Any name will do. You can then scroll down and set up all kinds of custom alerts. If you click in the trackball on, say, SMS Text, you’ll go to the options screen. Here you can change all of the options for in-holster and out of holster alerts. Want this contact to vibrate only? You can do that. Want to totally silence the profile? That’s easy, too.
For example, I created a profiled called Fam. I changed the Phone to a different ringtone than normal, and did the same with text messages. After that, I hit the back button and hit Save. Once back at the Advanced screen, Fam was added to the bottom of the profile list.
To add contacts for this profile click the menu key and, as above, click New Exception. Follow the instructions above. Since this is a profile for my family, I named the first exception Sis. In the From field I clicked in the trackball and added the Sister contact. Under Use Profile, I changed it to Fam. I also unchecked the Custom Phone Tune box, since I already set it in the profile. After that, I scrolled back to the top, clicked in the trackball, and hit Save.
Back at the Advanced screen, Sis was added to the Use Active Profile Except For screen. Repeat the process for any other people you wish to add to that profile. The main thing to remember is that profiles allow you to change all alert settings, and exceptions allow you to assign contacts to those profiles. That should clear up some confusion in language and process.
The only downside I see is that if you use a few different profiles and a good number of exceptions, the profiles page can get pretty long. Then again, it’s not like we don’t scroll through tons of pages on our BlackBerry devices every day.
Give it a try, and send us some feedback, let us know how it works.
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Filed under : BlackBerry Guides 26 Comments
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26 Comments ↓
Hi
Im sorry, but I still dont get it. I read something simliar or maybe even the same thing on blackberry forums. And the exceptions are not working for me at all! I have an 8100 and they never worked as i was on OS 4.2 nor on 4.5. Either i am really stupid and the expections never work for me. But thanks for trying to help us understand.
One of the first things I did when I got the BB was set up my individual ringtones. They worked really great for a while. Now they seem to work every other time or so. I find if I resave them after they don’t work right a few times they work again – once or twice. But resaving them all constantly is crazy.
Could cleaning memory, clearing cookies and history alter them? I have it set to do all this each time I holster the device.
How do I add an audible alert for voicemail for my Blackberry 8830?
I have downloaded ringtones to my Blackberry Curve 8310 from the AT&T website. I received the alert which I accepted and it gave me a thank you response. I can’t find the ringtones on my phone anywhere. HELP!
I tried both of these options and still cannot get it to work! I have the Curve. I created a new profile, changed the ringtone on the level 1 messages, sms, mms, and phone, made an exception, made sure the exception box was checked, and it still is the same ringtone for all my texts. Please help!
Rachel, that is the same problem I am having! Do these steps not work for a blackberry curve.
I also have the blackberry curve and would like to be able to set my phone up so when individual contacts send me a text message a ringtone i assigned to that person will play and then another person a different ringtone will play.
So when setting up the profile and exception thing does that mean for each different person i need a different profile, therefore it would not be possible?
Please help!
I have a Blackberry Curve. I followed these instructions exactly as described. I created a FAMILY profile and added my contacts to this profile. If my Family Profile was ACTIVE, the ringtone changed to the one set in Family. If the NORMAL profile was ACTIVE, the Family Ringtone would not work, just the Normal profile ringtone would ring. The only way I could get different ringtones for individuals was by changing them in my Contacts list.
Joe… this is a good post but one thing and i wonder if u can answer it or know a way or program to fix this
—————–
i have 3 profiles that i made and the active loud profile
Loud blackberry default profile – with sounds
my girl – with diff sound
my sister – with diff sounds
loud(all) – with diff sounds – this has everyone from my adress book in it
also have the 3 exceptions with them so the profiles can work everything works fine the ringtones and sms for the 3 profiles and for numbers that are not in my address book the loud profile does them sounds how ever it wont for the sms
the sms sound that i get from uknown contact is the sound from the one of the 3 profiles of which was the lastone to msg me
im not sure if this is a os bug or something but its really buggin me that everything works and i dont get why the loud and uknown text sound does not kick but it does the sound for one of the 3 profiles that was the last to text me……
does the exceptions override the default profile an kill the sms sound for the loud profile if so why does it not do it for the email sounds or ringtone why just sms
You’ve got me stumped, Brian. Let me look into this a bit further. Any commenters have an answer?
Brian – I’m having the exact same problem. Did you ever find a solution?
I am having the same issue (unknown or other texts alert me with the sound of the last profile to text me)
This worked great on my 8330! It’s gonna take a while to customize all the people I talk to a lot, but if you like knowing who the text is from before you look at it, then it’s worth it. Thank you! :]
I have the Curve 8330 and this worked perfectly! Very helpful.
Worked fine for my 8310 Curve.. Thanks.
FYI, I found that my custom theme was causing the same issues that I was seeing with the curve. Getting the same txt alert for all sms msgs even through it was set for just one person. I changed it to a default theme and recreated the custom alert and it worked like a charm!
J-Co
worked great for me!
I have a BB Curve 8330.
Thank You!
OMG! I’ve been trying to figure this out forever. Thanks for breaking it down into simple terms.
[...] you may want to subscribe to my feed or subscribe to us on Twitter!We already know that you can assign custom alerts to specific BlackBery contacts. We also know that the process can get cumbersome if you want to assign specific alerts to a large [...]
I’m wanting to change a ringtone for blackberry messenger. I have a Tour and am having no success in finding out how to assign each contact in messenger a different tone.
@Amy
Check out the following posts for tips on how to handle this using custom profiles and exceptions:
http://www.bbgeeks.com/blackberry-guides/how-to-assign-ringtones-and-alerts-to-specific-blackberry-contacts-88535/
http://bit.ly/50LLAb
I have the Sprint BB 8830 and I have tried this multiple times and I STILL can’t get it working?! Anyone else was an 8830 having this problem?? Any idea’s on how I can get it to work!?!?!?
Thanks!
-Brenna
I have the sprint bb curve 8330 and I’m tryin to set it up to where if I set a ringtone for a contact its da same for both messages and calls but it will not work. I have a default tone for the sms and calls and it seems like its assigned to everyone…..what can I do to fix this problem??
great advise. thank you very much. did it and it was easier than i thought
I did every step correctly and I still cannot get the correct sms tone. I created a new profile, and then i created an exception with that profile as the option for the ringtone/text. I just want one person to have a different ringtone when they send me a text. When i set it on the active profile, the exception is not working, it gives me the same sound as everyone else. When i set the custom profile that i made, it just makes it so that everyone has the same ringtone that i only wanted for one specific person. Does this not work for a 8310 curve? Please help me, im frustrated.
Same as what Courtney said/asked- My goal has been to make the tone when an SMS Text (not a phone call) comes in from a specific person a completely different tone than anyone and anything else. I cannot seem to figure it out on my Pearl! Please help- I literally could care less what any other sounds are, I just need this one person’s text messages to be a very distinct sound.
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