How To Set Up Voicemail On Your Smartphone & Access Messages

Voicemail is an audio or voice message that is recorded when you are on another call or when a phone call goes unanswered so you can listen to it later.

It differs from older autoresponders in that instead of storing the message on the device, it stores it in a mailbox on your service provider’s server, just like an email message.

If you’ve never used or activated voicemail on your Android or iPhone, we’ll show you how to set up voicemail and access your messages

How to set up Voicemail on Android

To do this, you need the voicemail number provided by your mobile operator or service provider. Call them and inquire about the service, if there are any costs and other related details.

Then tap the Phone app on the home screen of your Android phone and tap the three vertical dots at the top right of the screen.

Select “Settings”.

Click Voicemail.

Then click “Voicemail Settings” and enter the phone number you received from your mobile operator or service provider.

Note. In this guide, we used a Samsung S8 + running Android 9, so the steps may differ depending on the Android version and device.

How to Check Voicemail on Android

There are different ways to check your voicemail to access messages on your Android smartphone:

1. Call your mailbox or your own number

2. Using visual voicemail

3. From your computer

Check your voicemail by calling your mailbox or your number

Now that you have voicemail set up on your smartphone, you can access any messages you have left by calling your inbox using speed dial or by calling your number from your phone.

To do this, open the Phone app and tap the dial pad icon at the bottom.

Press and hold 1 and enter your voicemail password if prompted.

Access Voicemail Messages Using Visual Voicemail

Visual Voicemail is a feature that allows you to see your voicemail messages on a list like your email without having to dial a number first. This way, you can choose the ones you want to listen to immediately or later, as well as those you want to move, share or delete.

This is fine when you have a lot of voicemail messages, but you can also use a visual voicemail application like YouMail, Google Voice, or HulloMail to transcribe your incoming messages.

The first step is to enable visual voicemail and it depends if your operator supports this feature. If so, open â€œSettingsâ€ and go to â€œApplicationsâ€ and then click on â€œVisual Voicemailâ€.

Click Permissions.

Turn on the phone.

From now on, you can manage your voicemail via visual voicemail

Check voicemail messages from computer

You can use a third-party app to listen to your computer voicemail messages from your Android phone if your carrier does not support visual voicemail One good option that works for both Android and iOS is YouMail.

Register and install YouMail, open your browser and go to YouMail. Enter your credentials and click Sign In. Go to the “Recent Messages” section to view your new voice messages.

To see more messages, click the Play icon next to the message you want to listen to. Or click “Inbox”. You can also select other options such as Forward, Save, Delete, Notes, Block, or Forward from your Inbox by selecting the message you want.

Note. If you have another device that supports the YouMail app, you can also manage your voicemail from there.

How to set up Voicemail on iPhone

For iPhone, the voicemail service is already stored there by your carrier, so you’ll start by creating a password.
Then go to the Phone app and click Voicemail in the lower right corner of the screen.

Click Set Up Now and enter a four to six digit password.

Click Finish and enter your password again, then click Finish.

You’ve set up your voicemail, so you don’t need to use a password anymore unless there’s a problem.

How to Listen to Your Voicemail Messages on iPhone

After setting up your voicemail, you can access and listen to your messages. In the Phone app, next to the Voicemail tab, you will see an icon with a number that indicates that you have unheard messages.

To listen to your messages, open the Phone app and tap Voicemail. in the lower right corner of the screen.
Click on the message you want to listen to and you will see the playback options screen.

Then press Speaker to play the voicemail message through the speaker of the phone. You can also tap Audio to listen to it from your phone or through a Bluetooth speaker.

Click Play. If you want to pause the message, click Pause and to forward it, drag the slider to the right, or drag to the left to rewind the message.
You can also mark a voicemail message as heard if you don’t want to listen to it or already know what it is about. To do this, go to Phone> Voicemail and then tap Edit in the upper right corner of the screen.

Click on the unheard message, then click Mark as Read in the lower left corner of the screen.

To save or share voicemail messages on iPhone, open the Phone app and tap Voicemail.
Tap the message, then tap the Share icon (square with arrow).

Tap the tool you want to use to send or save your voicemail message and it will be sent or saved as an m4a file.

Record Personalized Voicemail Welcome Message

If you want your callers to receive a default greeting when they reach your voicemail message, you can do so by leaving a custom greeting of your choice.

To do this, open “Phone”> “Voicemail” and press Welcome.

Click Custom.

Then tap Record to start recording your own greeting, and then tap Play to play it back and check that you want others to hear it.
When you’re done, click Save.

Use Visual Voicemail on iPhone

Visual Voicemail is also available on your iPhone, so you can see all your messages without having to pre-dial. On your iPhone, you will see a list of your messages, which you can listen to in a specific order, or even preview messages and their transcripts.

Note. Make sure your wireless carrier supports visual voicemail before using it on your iPhone.

To use Visual Voicemail on iPhone, go to Phone> Voicemail and view your messages.
Click any message to read a transcript of it, and then click Play to listen to it.

To output audio, tap Speaker and then tap Callback if you want to answer the call, or Share to share it with others by forwarding it in a text message, email, or saving in the cloud. or in the application “Recorder”.

When you are done listening and no longer need the file, you can click “Delete” to delete it.

Note. If you’ve deleted a voicemail by mistake and want to get it back, tap Phone> Voicemail and go to the Deleted Messages section to view the deleted voice messages and see if they are on your iPhone.

Click â€œUndo Deleteâ€ under the voicemail message, and then click â€œVoicemail Menuâ€ in the upper left corner to return to the Visual Voicemail screen. You will find the recovered message in the list.

Note. If you sync your iPhone with your computer, you won’t be able to recover your voicemail message. So if you didn’t find it in your deleted messages list, it probably isn’t there anymore.

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