The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ are among the best flagship handsets released this year. Packed to the brim with features, they run on Samsung’s latest Experience UI which has been further improved since it first debuted on the Galaxy S8 with new features and enhancements. However, these improvements have ended up making a simple task of setting up a custom ringtone or notification sound on the handset pretty complex.

This is quite ironic since the task of a smartphone first is to make phone calls so all associated functions and features related to it should also be easy to use. It is not like the option to use a custom ringtone or notification sound is not present on the Galaxy S9, it is just unnecessarily complex. But then as they say, where there is will, there is always a way. If you really do want to know how to use custom ringtone sounds on your Galaxy S9, follow the steps below.

Read: Samsung Galaxy S9 Review: Finally a Flagship with Everything

How To Use Custom Ringtones on Samsung Galaxy S9

Step 1: Open the Settings menu and head over to the Sounds and vibration menu.

Step 2: Tap Ringtone and select the ringtone of your choice from the list. You can tap any ringtone to hear its preview. Once you have selected a ringtone of your choice, press the back button to exit and save your changes.

If you want to use a custom ringtone, select the Add option from the list. From the file picker that opens, select the audio file of your choice that is stored on your phone. Make sure that the audio file is optimized to be used as a ringtone otherwise you might end up missing all your incoming calls.

You can use a similar approach to change notification and other system sounds on the phone.

How To Set up Custom Ringtone For Individual Contacts on Samsung Galaxy S9

Step 1: Open the Contacts app and select the contact of your choice for which you want to set up a custom ringtone.

Step 2: Open the contact details, tap Edit followed by More -> Ringtone. You will then be asked to grant storage permission to the Contacts app.

Once granted, select the ringtone of your choice. Confirm your changes and exit the menu for the changes to take effect.

How To Set Up Custom Text Message Notification Tone Per Contact on Galaxy S9

Up until Oreo, Samsung allowed users to set up a custom text message notification tone for a particular contact. However, post the Oreo update, that is no longer possible. Irrespective of how much you dig deep into Samsung’s Experience UI, you will not find the option to set a custom notification tone for incoming text messages from a particular contact. There’s a simple workaround to this problem though.

You cannot set up custom text message notification sound for each contact in the default Samsung Messaging app, but third-party messaging apps on the Play Store have this functionality baked in. Apart from setting up custom notification tone for messages for individual contacts, these apps also offer more features than Samsung’s stock messaging app. My recommendation would be to try Textra or Chomp SMS.

Update: Samsung has updated its Samsung Messages app to add support for custom notification tone for individual contacts. It also adds GIF support, brings a revamped UI, set quick responses, AR Emoji integration, and more. The feature is available on v 5.0.21.18 and above version of the app. You can update to the latest version of Samsung’s Messages app from the Galaxy App Store or download the APK from here.

Did the relatively complex way of setting up a custom notification sound for individual contacts on the Galaxy S9 frustrate you a lot?