Use Live Voicemail on your iPhone
With Live Voicemail in iOS 17 and later, you can view a real-time transcription of the message someone is leaving you as they speak, giving you the immediate context of the call. If you want to address it, you can pick up the call while they’re still on the line.
Turn Live Voicemail on or off
Open the Settings app, then tap Phone.
Tap Live Voicemail.
Turn Live Voicemail on or off.
In iOS 17 and later, Live Voicemail is on by default.
When Live Voicemail is turned on, your phone will pick up incoming calls to capture the caller’s voicemail for you to see in real-time. Standard calling or data rates may apply. The caller can’t hear you and you can’t hear them unless you answer the call.
Live Voicemail isn’t available in every region or language. See iOS and iPadOS Feature Availability.
Send a call to Live Voicemail
When you receive an incoming call and you want to send it to Live Voicemail, tap the Voicemail button
. Standard calling or data rates may apply.
If you don’t answer a call when you’re on your network provider’s network, it will also be sent to Live Voicemail. If you don’t answer a call while roaming, the call will not be sent to Live Voicemail. While roaming, a call will only be sent to Live Voicemail if you tap the Voicemail button.
Where to find Live Voicemail transcriptions
After a call, you can find voicemails captured by your phone with Live Voicemail in the Voicemail tab of the Phone app.
Transcriptions captured during Live Voicemail are available to view as long as you keep the voicemail in your inbox. We know voicemails can contain precious moments. Your voicemails are never deleted on your behalf, so you can keep them for as long as you’d like.
If Visual Voicemail is turned on, voicemails captured by your network provider also appear in the Voicemail tab. If your iPhone is turned off or out of your network provider’s range, calls go to network provider voicemail. Otherwise, the call goes to Live Voicemail.
Visual Voicemail is available from select network providers in select countries or regions.
If conditional call forwarding isn’t working as expected
If conditional call forwarding you set up with your network provider isn’t working as expected or you don’t see the option to decline an incoming call, turn off Live Voicemail to continue using conditional call forwarding:
Open the Settings app, then tap Phone.
Tap Live Voicemail.
Turn Live Voicemail off.
