How to Set up Voicemail on Your IPhone
This weekend I noticed that a lot of my friends didn’t have voicemail set up. After thinking about it, I wasn’t sure if I even had the option of having a custom greeting, but setting up voicemail on an iPhone isn’t really that hard at all.
How to Set Up Voicemail on iPhone
First, go to the home screen and press the phone button. It’s a green button with a picture of a phone on it that takes you to the dialpad with additional tabs for your recent calls, contacts, and favorites. In the lower right corner you will see a voicemail shortcut. Click on it. (It’s usually found in the bottom row of apps on the home screen. Mine is shown below, but keep in mind it’s pink because I customized it, which you can do by following the steps here .)
If you don’t have voicemail set up at all, you’ll see a screen that says “To receive voicemail, first set a password and greeting.” Click “Set Up Now” and you will be prompted to create a password. Both the password and the greeting can be changed later, which we’ll talk about a little later.
How to Set Up a Voicemail Greeting on iPhone
If you just set up voicemail and created a password, you’ll be taken to a screen to set up your greeting. If you already have voicemail, you can access this screen by clicking “Welcome” in the top right corner.
From here, you’ll be able to choose whether you want the default message to play when someone calls, or whether you want to record (or overwrite) your own. The default will simply be an automated voice telling you that the owner of the number is unavailable. Custom is custom, and you can say whatever you want in a pre-recorded greeting.
If you select “Custom”, you will be able to click “Play”, “Stop” or “Record”. When you record a new recording, the old recording will be overwritten and you can view it by clicking Play.
Other iPhone Voicemail Settings
Your iPhone’s voicemail options are quite customizable beyond simply setting a password and greeting.
In Settings, go to Phone and scroll through the Calls section. There you can enable Live Voicemail, which transcribes your incoming messages so you can read them without listening. You can also set your phone to immediately enter numbers from unknown callers, which will be muted on your end and go straight to voicemail.
At the end of the list, you’ll see an option to change your voicemail password, so you don’t have to save the one you chose when you set it up.