How to save your important voicemails on your phone

There are lots of reasons you might want to save voicemail messages from your phone.

A sweet note from a distant relative. A doctor’s appointment reminder. Directions to a kid’s ball game. Or even switching carriers to CREDO or adding a line!

Thankfully, there are some easy ways to save and backup those voicemails from your Apple or Android phone. Here’s how to do it.

How to save voicemails from your Apple iPhone

First things first, your iPhone will save your voicemails practically forever, unless you accidentally delete them. Even if you do, they will still be available in your “Deleted Messages” section of your iPhone’s Voicemail feature until you delete those, too.

But, let’s say you want to save your voicemail to another device, you’re switching from iPhone to Android, or you want to simply share a voicemail with a friend. Here are a few simple steps to save or share those important voicemails from your iPhone.

1. Go to your Phone app > then tap Voicemail in the bottom right corner.
2. Tap on the voicemail message you want to save, which will reveal a transcription and some playback options.
3. Tap the share button
4. Here, you will have a number of options to save or share your voicemail, including sending an email, sharing via AirDrop, sending via Messages to your contacts, or saving to a cloud service, like iCloud or Google Drive, if installed.

No matter which option you choose, your voicemail file will be saved in the .m4a file format, which most major audio players recognize. 

How to save voicemails from your Android device

Saving voicemails from your Android device is also very easy. Some third party Android apps, both free and paid — like YouMail, HulloMail or InstaVoice — can assist with backing up and organizing your voicemail, but you can also save individual voicemails straight from your Android without an extra app. 

Since the Android interface can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, the directions below could be slightly different depending on the model of your phone.

1. Open your voicemail app.
2. Tap, or tap and hold, the voicemail you want to save.
3. Choose the menu option that allows you to save, which may be “Send to…,” “Export,” “Archive,” or “Save.”
4. From here, you can choose the method to save or share your voicemail, like Google Drive, Messages, Gmail, or another option. 
5. Click Save or Ok when you’re done.