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Your iPhone’s deleted voicemails aren’t truly deleted. This is why and tips on how to delete them for good


Cropped shot of an unrecognizable man using a smartphone and a laptop while working from home

Moyo Studio by way of Getty Photographs

My voicemail is crammed with automated message reminders, bum dials, and spam messages that are irrelevant to my each day life. Listening to and deleting these messages isn’t one thing I do usually, however it may be useful to stop the dreaded “Mailbox is full” communication that incoming callers generally get.

Nonetheless, for those who’ve ever gone by your iPhone’s visible voicemail and deleted older or ineffective voicemails, the reality is you most likely have not deleted them in any respect. 

Voicemail messages are usually saved within the cellular service’s servers; they don’t seem to be robotically saved on the telephone itself, however they are often backed as much as iCloud or a pc.  

As a result of voicemails are saved by the service, voicemail settings are comparatively restricted in your telephone, so for those who’re having points with voicemail that you could’t appear to unravel by troubleshooting, it is most likely one thing your service is aware of tips on how to repair. 

The truth that voicemails are usually saved in your service’s server and never your telephone itself is why you need to arrange your voicemail once more whenever you change carriers or get a brand new telephone, and why you are more likely to lose them within the course of except they’re backed up.

Tips on how to truly delete your deleted iPhone voicemails

Step 1: Go to Voicemail

You can access your visual voicemail on the Phone app

You possibly can entry your visible voicemail on the Telephone app

Picture: Maria Diaz / ZDNet

The Telephone utility is the place latest calls, contacts, favorites, the dial pad, and voicemail reside. It is the place you possibly can entry visible voicemail.  

Go to the Voicemail tab on the Telephone app.

Step 2: Delete undesirable messages

One of many cool issues about visible voicemail is that it makes it simpler to delete your voicemail messages. 

I am a fan of eliminating outdated and undesirable issues on the whole, however do you keep in mind once we needed to name our personal voicemail to verify our messages? We needed to sit there ready for the recording to undergo the inbox so we might press a button on the keypad to delete a message. 

Voicemails can be deleted individually on in groups

Voicemails might be deleted individually on in teams

Picture: Maria Diaz / ZDNet

There are two methods to delete voicemails in your telephone: both choose a person message and delete it (left) or faucet on Edit on the prime proper nook of the Voicemail tab and choose a number of to delete without delay (proper). Sadly, there isn’t any Choose All possibility.

Step 3: Test Deleted Messages

Voicemail inbox looks empty, with the exception of the Deleted Messages

Voicemail inbox appears to be like empty, excluding the Deleted Messages

Picture: Maria Diaz / ZDNet

When you deleted all of the messages, you are now watching a seemingly “empty” inbox, however with a Deleted Messages button. The Deleted Messages is just like the cemetery in your deleted voicemails. And it is the place you possibly can retrieve them for those who by chance delete one you meant to save lots of. iPhone additionally shops your deleted images within the Photographs app for 30 days for that reason.

Deleted messages folder

Deleted messages folder has all my outdated voicemails from once I first obtained my telephone

Picture: Maria Diaz / ZDNet

However for those who overlook this place exists, your voicemails of yore pile up in there, very similar to mine did.

I’ve voicemail messages in my Deleted folder courting again to January 2019, across the time I obtained my iPhone XS Max. Thoughts you, I additionally switched telephone carriers in late 2021, so the place are all voicemails saved? Is it simply on the service’s server or the telephone as effectively? Plainly, in my case, most have been saved on the telephone itself as effectively.

Step 4: Faucet Clear All

Tap Clear All

Picture: Maria Diaz / ZDNet

Once I tapped on Deleted Messages, all of the voicemails I had deleted prior to now 3.5 years have been there. When you’re on the Deleted Messages, you possibly can merely faucet Clear All to eliminate all of them. 

Empty mailbox

Picture: Maria Diaz / ZDNet

Additionally: Tips on how to arrange voicemail on iPhone

However are you able to be 100% sure that your voicemails are deleted eternally?

Deleting voicemails out of your visible voicemail ought to delete them from the service’s server, however does it? Verizon says deleting these messages, plus the voicemails on the deleted messages folder on iPhone will completely erase them and can’t be undone, main one to deduce that the deleted visible VM messages are additionally deleted from the service’s servers. In case you are involved about this, I might advocate a name to your service to verify that is the case. 

FAQ

Sadly, there is not any straight reply for this, because it varies from one service to the subsequent. I had voicemails courting again to January 2019 in each my regular inbox and my deleted messages, so I clearly questioned the place they’re being saved. Is AT&T storing my messages out of the kindness of its coronary heart after I left it a yr in the past? 

I can not converse with certainty for the messages on the inbox, nevertheless it does seem to be the deleted messages from my voicemail have been saved on my telephone. Once I switched carriers a yr in the past, I additionally modified my telephone quantity however did not get a brand new system, and all my outdated voicemails remained. 

Earlier than I began deleting voicemails like I had one thing to cover, I checked my iPhone storage. You possibly can verify yours by going to Settings, then choosing Normal, then iPhone Storage. 

Earlier than deleting all voicemails after which all deleted voicemails, my storage sat at 178.1 GB. After deleting them it dropped to 174.4 GB. I want I had truly counted my messages earlier than deleting them however with over 3.5 years of voicemails, I’m fairly sure I had over 100.

iPhone storage change

iPhone storage snapshot earlier than and after deleting voicemails

Picture: Maria Diaz / ZDNet

Visible voicemail is a characteristic that lets customers see their incoming voicemail messages on a listing, permitting for straightforward playback and even transcription, relying on the service’s help.

As a substitute of calling a voicemail service and listening to all of the messages, Visible Voicemail shows them as a listing of recordings, additionally permitting customers to share, save, or delete them rapidly.  

The way you name to entry conventional voicemail relies upon largely on the service. Some carriers make voicemail accessible by merely dialing 1, others you need to name a particular quantity. Usually, simply calling your personal quantity out of your telephone (or your quantity from one other telephone and dialing * or #) will provide you with entry to voicemail with sequential taking part in. 

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