Summary
- If your iPhone’s voicemail isn’t working, there are several troubleshooting steps you can try.
- To fix voicemail problem on your iPhone, first make sure the voicemail and greeting are set up properly in your Phone app.
- You can also call into your voicemail box to make sure the service is working properly.
Are you having issues with visual voicemail on your iPhone? One of the commonly reported problems is that your voicemails and/or your voicemail transcripts are not showing up. Or sometimes it may seem that your voicemails have suddenly vanished. Sometimes you may see your voicemails but they won’t play. Sometimes, you may experience that voicemail stops working for no apparent reason following an iOS update.
Why is my iPhone voicemail not working?
The most common reasons why voicemail is not working on your iPhone include: iOS bug, incorrect settings, network problems, glitch with the Phone app, mailbox is full, and problems with your wireless carrier.
If your iPhone’s voicemail isn’t working — either some part of it is glitching or voicemail doesn’t work at all — here’s your one-stop shop for troubleshooting the problem and getting voicemail back up and running.
Please note that you can use the visual voicemail feature if your carrier supports this, in the USA, most carriers, if not all, support this.
What to do if your iPhone’s voicemail is not working
Try the following steps in order to get your iPhone voicemail back up and running.
Make sure voicemail is set up on your iPhone
The first thing you should do when voicemail is not working on your iPhone is to make sure that the feature is set up properly on your device. If you recently changed carriers (or even plans at the same carrier), you might need to do an initial voicemail configuration.
Have someone call you, can he or she leave a voicemail message? If not, make sure that you set up your voicemail. Follow these steps:
- Open the Phone app.
- Tap the Voicemail tab at the bottom of the screen.
- If your voicemail hasn’t yet been set up or needs to be set up again, tap Set Up. Follow the instructions to create a voicemail password and choose or record a greeting.
Quick tip: If you’re dealing with a brand new iPhone, you may have to turn on your voicemail before you can set it up. The same goes if you’ve previously turned it off. To check, go into your settings > Apps and choose Phone. If you see Change Voicemail Password listed on that page, it’s on.
Check your voicemail Greeting
On your iPhone, open the Phone app, tap the Voicemail tab and tap Greeting. What settings you have there? If it is Default, change it to Custom and it is Custom, change it to Default.
Close and re-open the Phone app
You may be having voicemail issue because the Phone app may not be working as expected. You may try closing the Phone app and then start the Phone app a second time. If the app was suffering a minor software problem, it might now work.
If you have an iPhone X or later: Go to your Home screen, swipe up from the bottom of the screen. If this is an iPhone 8 or earlier, double press the Home button. This will reveal the app switcher. Swipe left or right until you find the Phone app preview and swipe up on the preview. This will close the Phone app.
Now reopen the Phone app and test to see if you can see your voicemails.
Empty your mailbox
Deleting your voicemails can also help, especially if your mailbox if full. Please note that you’ll have to select every single message in order to bulk delete them. Otherwise, go through each message and tap the delete button, if you prefer to listen to them beforehand.
- Open the Phone app on your iPhone.
- Tap Voicemail tab, then tap a message.
- Tap the Delete button to erase a message.
Quick tip: You can actually recover deleted voicemails by going into the Voicemail tab of the Phone app. To recover a deleted message, tap Deleted Messages, tap the message, then tap Undelete.
Make sure you don’t have call forwarding turned on
One of the most common reasons that voicemail seems to have stopped working on your iPhone is that you set up call forwarding at some time in the past and forgot to turn it off. Your calls are being directed to another phone number, so no calls ring through to the iPhone and record a voicemail message.
Here’s how to check your call forwarding status:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Apps.
- Tap Phone.
- Tap Call Forwarding.
- On the Call Forwarding page, check your forwarding status. If call forwarding is enabled, turn it off by toggling the button to the off position —it will then appear greyed out.
Reset your voicemail password
Try resetting your voicemail password. On your iPhone, you can do this easily. Here is how:
- Go to Settings > Apps > Phone and tap Change Voicemail Password.
- Enter a new password.
- Tap Done. You will be asked to reenter the new password. Enter again and then tap Done.
If you forgot your voicemail password, contact your wireless carrier.
Change the alert for new voicemail
If your iPhone is not notifying you when you have a voicemail, here’s what you can do:
- Check your voicemail notification settings: Go to Settings > Notifications > Phone, then make sure that Allow Notifications is turned on.
- Change the alert for new voicemail: Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics, then tap New Voicemail.
Toggle Airplane Mode on and off
On your iPhone, turn on Airplane Mode, wait for about a minute and turn it off. Airplane Mode will disable all of your device’s wireless functions. Turning on and off may fix your iPhone’s voicemail problem. If this does not work, also try this in the following order:
- Turn on Airplane Mode.
- Restart your phone (see the next section about how you can restart your phone).
- Then when your phone is on, turn off Airplane Mode now.
Check your cellular connection
Another possible solution — if you find that you’re having trouble getting a connection and that’s impacting your ability to access your voicemails — is to make sure that your iPhone is connected to a cellular network. Visual VoiceMails require a strong cellular connection to work effectively. You can check this easily. Turn off Wi-Fi on your iPhone (Settings > Wi-Fi) and call someone. If the call works, your cellular connection is working.
You may also try the following tips:
- Go to Settings > Cellular > and turn off Cellular Data. Wait for one minute. And then turn it on.
- If your iPhone has a physical SIM card, remove the SIM card, and place it again. You need to open the SIM tray. To do that insert a paper clip into the tray hole. Gently pus the paper clip toward the phone. This will open the SIM tray. Remove SIM
- Contact your wireless carrier. Maybe there are outages in your area that your carrier is experiencing.
Restart your iPhone
Restart your iPhone to fix voicemail problems. Here is how you can restart your iPhone:
- iPhone X, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 or later: Press and hold the side (on the side of your iPhone) and the volume down or up buttons together until you see the red slider. Drag the slider. Wait for about a minute and then press and hold the side button until the Apple logo appears.
- Other iPhone models: Press and hold the side or top button until you see the power off slider. Then drag the slider. Wait until your phone is completely turned off and then press and hold the side button to turn on your device back again.
Check for Carrier settings Updates
Update your carrier settings. You can check for pending carrier updates on your iPhone, go to Settings > General > About. If there is a carrier update, you will see an option to update. A popup will appear asking you if you want to update. Tap Update.
Carrier updates include updates from your carrier to add new features or enhance the performance.
Update your iPhone
Another way to fix voicemail problem on your iPhone is to update iOS to its latest version. You can update your iPhone wirelessly by going to Settings > General > Software Update.
You can also turn on automatic updates by turning on Automatic Updates (Settings > General > Software Update > Automatic Updates).
Voicemail transcripts not working
If your voicemail transcripts are not working, or if you are getting an error message like “Transcription not Available”. Siri may be the cause. Follow the steps below:
- Go to Settings > Siri (or Apple Intelligence & Siri).
- Tap Talk & Type to Siri.
- Select Off.
- And on iPhone X and later: turn off Press Side Button for Siri. On iPhone 8 and earlier: turn off Press Home for Siri.
- Restart your phone.
- And now turn on these Siri settings by going to Settings > Siri (or Apple Intelligence & Siri).
You may also want to troubleshoot if Siri is not working.
Call voicemail directly
You can also check your voicemail messages by calling voicemail. Here is how you can do that on your iPhone:
- Open the Phone app.
- Tap Keypad.
- Press and hold on the 1. This will call voicemail. Here is where you can check voicemails.
Reset network settings
If your voicemail service appears to be normal but it’s still not working on your iPhone, you can reset your phone’s network settings. Go to Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings. Please note that your network-related settings will be erased like your Wi-Fi passwords etc.
Contact your wireless carrier
There are many reasons why your Voicemail may not be working on your iPhone. And, if after troubleshooting things for yourself, you find that it’s still not working, it’s time to contact your wireless carrier. They should be able to walk you through your options, and, hopefully, fix the issue.
