How to save voicemails from someone who died: a guide
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My friend Sarah lost her dad in March 2024. Two weeks later, she was scrolling through her phone and realized she still had three voicemails from him. One was just logistics about picking up her son from school. Another was him singing happy birthday off-key. The third was a fifteen-second message that ended with "Love you, kid." She needed to save those voicemails before something erased them, and she had no idea how.
If you're in a similar situation, this guide will walk you through how to save voicemails from someone who died, back them up properly, and keep them safe for years to come.
Why voicemails disappear (and why you should act now)
Voicemails feel permanent because they've been sitting on your phone for months or years. They're not. Several things can erase them without warning:
A phone reset or factory restore will wipe locally stored voicemails. A carrier account closure, which often happens within 30 to 90 days of a death, deletes the voicemail server data. According to Verizon's support documentation, visual voicemail messages are stored on their servers and subject to automatic deletion policies. An iOS update has occasionally caused voicemail data loss, as Apple's own support forums confirm.
If the voicemails are on your phone (messages someone left you), you have more control. If they're on the deceased person's phone, you'll need physical access to that device or cooperation from the carrier.
The bottom line: save them today. Not next week.
How to save voicemails on iPhone
Open the Phone app and tap the Voicemail tab at the bottom. Find the message you want to keep. Tap on it so it expands, then tap the share icon (the square with an upward arrow).
From here, you can:
- Save to Files (puts it in iCloud Drive or on-device storage)
- Save to Voice Memos (easy to find later, and Voice Memos syncs across Apple devices)
- AirDrop to your computer
- Send it to yourself via email or Messages
The file saves as a .m4a audio file, which is good quality and widely compatible. If you have multiple voicemails to save, do them one by one. There's no batch export option.
One thing people miss: check the "Deleted Messages" folder at the bottom of the Voicemail screen. iPhones keep deleted voicemails for about 30 days before permanently erasing them. If you recently cleaned out old messages in a grief fog, they might still be recoverable there.
How to save voicemails on Android
Android voicemail works differently depending on your carrier and phone model. If you use the built-in Phone app's visual voicemail:
Open your Phone app and go to the Voicemail section. Long-press or tap the message to see options. Look for "Save," "Share," or "Export." Some phones let you save directly to your device storage as an .amr or .mp3 file.
If you use a carrier's visual voicemail app (like T-Mobile Visual Voicemail or AT&T Call Protect), the save process varies by app. Most have a share or save option within the message detail screen.
For Google Voice users, voicemails are already stored in your Google account. You can download them from voice.google.com by selecting the message and clicking the three-dot menu, then "Download."
If nothing else works, here's a low-tech method that still produces decent results: play the voicemail on speakerphone and record it with another device. Use a second phone's Voice Memos or a computer's built-in recorder. The quality won't be perfect, but you'll have the voice and the words, which is what matters.
Saving voicemails from the deceased person's phone
If you have access to your loved one's phone, you can export voicemails they received (messages other family members may have left them, or their own outgoing greeting).
For the outgoing voicemail greeting (where you hear their voice saying "Hi, you've reached..."), call their number before the line gets disconnected. Record the greeting using another device. This is one of the most commonly overlooked voice recordings, and people often regret losing it.
If the phone is locked and you don't know the passcode, options are limited. Apple's Digital Legacy program allows designated Legacy Contacts to request access to an Apple ID after death, but this requires the contact to have been set up in advance. Without it, you'd need a court order and to work with Apple's support team directly.
For the phone line itself, contact the carrier. You'll typically need a death certificate and proof of your relationship (executor documentation or next-of-kin status). Some carriers will keep the account active for a grace period if you explain the situation and ask.
Where to store voicemails for the long term
Once you've gotten the audio files off your phone, don't just leave them in one place. Digital files need redundancy the same way paper documents do.
Save copies in at least two of these locations:
A cloud storage service like Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox. These are unlikely to disappear overnight and are accessible from any device. An external hard drive or USB drive kept in a safe or with your important documents. A dedicated folder within your digital estate plan or the same system where you keep other irreplaceable files.
Name the files clearly. Something like "Dad_voicemail_birthday_2019.m4a" is infinitely better than "voicemail_003.m4a" when you're looking for it three years later. Add a text file in the same folder noting who the voice belongs to, approximate date, and what they're talking about. Future generations won't have the context you have now.
For archival quality, the Library of Congress digital preservation guidelines recommend uncompressed formats like WAV for long-term audio storage. If your voicemails saved as .m4a or .mp3, that's fine for personal use, but converting a copy to WAV gives you an insurance policy against format obsolescence.
Turning voicemails into something you can live with
Saving the files is the practical part. The emotional part is harder. Some people find comfort in listening regularly. Others can't bear to hear the voice at all, at least not yet, and that's completely normal.
A few ideas for what to do with saved voicemails beyond just archiving them:
Maria, who lost her mother in 2023, had a jeweler create a sound wave necklace from a three-second clip of her mom saying "I love you." She wears it daily. The company uses a spectrogram of the audio to create a visual waveform etched into metal.
Tom compiled his grandfather's voicemails into a single audio file, interspersed with his own narration about when each message was left and what was happening in their lives at the time. He shared it with cousins at a family gathering, and it sparked two hours of stories nobody had told in years.
Others simply keep the files in a digital family time capsule alongside photos and scanned letters, set to be shared with grandchildren who never met the person.
You don't have to do anything creative with them. Having them is enough. Knowing that voice isn't gone.
What if the voicemails are already gone
Sometimes people find this article too late. The phone was already reset, the carrier already closed the account, the messages are gone.
If voicemails have been deleted from an iPhone within the last 30 days, check that Deleted Messages folder mentioned earlier. For carrier-side deletions, call and ask, though success rates are low once the data is purged from their servers.
Beyond that, check other places the voice might exist. Home videos, even brief ones shot on a phone. Video calls that were recorded. Voice messages sent through WhatsApp, iMessage, or Facebook Messenger (these are stored in the app's chat history, not in the voicemail system). Old answering machine tapes if you're from a generation that had those. Security camera footage with audio. Birthday party videos. Even a clip from a school event or work presentation.
The voice doesn't have to be saying something meaningful to be meaningful. My neighbor kept a five-second clip of her husband yelling "can someone get the door?" from a doorbell camera. It's him. That's all it needs to be.
A note on grief and digital preservation
There's no right way to handle this. Some people save everything immediately because the urgency gives them something concrete to do during the worst week of their lives. Others can't look at the phone for months. Both are valid.
If you're reading this for someone else, the best thing you can do is offer to handle the technical steps. "I can save those voicemails to your computer whenever you're ready" is a better gift than most sympathy cards.
And if you're reading this while someone you love is still alive, consider recording their voice now. Ask them to leave you a voicemail on purpose. Record a conversation over dinner. Capture the laugh, the way they say your name, the throat-clear before they tell a story. You won't regret having too many recordings. You'll only regret having too few.
When I Die Files lets you store voice recordings, letters, and personal messages in one place, so the people you love can hear from you whenever they need to.