Things you should know

  • In some countries or regions, your carrier may permanently delete the message. This means that you will not be able to recover deleted voicemails.
  • If you don’t use Visual Voicemail on your iPhone, which allows you to follow the steps below, you may need to contact your carrier for help deleting and recovering your messages.
  • When you change your SIM card, your voicemail messages may also be deleted.
  • The length of time that voice messages remain on your device depends on your carrier.

Voice messages, like emails, can accumulate over time. Before you know it, you have a lot of voice messages that you don’t need. If you are ready to do some cleaning on your iPhone, we will guide you how to delete single and multiple voicemail messages on your iPhone.

How to delete voicemails on iPhone

You may have one voicemail that you want to delete, or plan to go through your voicemail list and delete only the messages you no longer need, one by one.

  1. Open the Phone app → select the Voicemail tab.
  2. Then do one of the following to delete your voicemail:
    • In the Voicemail list, swipe the message from right to left and tap Delete.
    • Select a voicemail to view the details and click the delete (trash) icon.

Delete Voicemail from your iPhone

You will not be asked to confirm deletion of your voicemail. The message will simply disappear from your voicemail list.

If you have multiple voicemails that you would like to delete, you can do it in one fell swoop.

How to delete all voicemails from your iPhone at once

  1. Open the phone app.
  2. Go to the Voicemail tab → select Edit in the upper right corner.
  3. Click to select a circle next to each voice message you want to delete.
  4. Select Delete in the lower right corner.

    How to delete multiple voice messages on iPhone

Again, you will not be asked to confirm the action. The messages will simply be removed from the Voicemail list.

How do I recover deleted voicemail on my iPhone?

Now that you know how to get rid of voicemail, you may be wondering how to retrieve accidentally deleted voicemail on your iPhone. You may have deleted a message and later found that you need it again.

Remember, you can only restore voicemail on your iPhone that hasn’t been permanently deleted (as explained below).

  1. Open the Phone app → select the Voicemail tab.
  1. Scroll to the bottom of the list of messages and tap Deleted Messages.
    NB. You won’t see the Deleted messages option unless there were recently deleted voicemail messages.
  1. Select the voicemail you want to recover → click on the “Recover” icon (trash has a line through it).

    How to recover deleted voicemails on iPhone

The message will then return to your voicemail list.

How to permanently delete voicemail from iPhone

  1. Open the Phone app → select the Voicemail tab.
  1. Scroll to the bottom of the list of messages and tap Deleted Messages.
  1. In the upper-right corner of the menu, select Clear All.
  1. Confirm that you want to permanently delete voicemails by tapping Clear All at the bottom of the screen.

    How to delete voicemail permanently

Your deleted messages will be completely deleted.

With this in mind, you may be wondering how to retrieve permanently deleted voicemails on your iPhone. To do this, you need to contact your carrier. There is no guarantee that you will be able to recover permanently deleted voicemail, but it is worth a try if you really want to get that message back.

summary

Now that you know how to delete and recover messages, are you going to spend some time clearing the voicemail list on iPhone? Let us know!

To learn more, check out How to Turn Off Voicemail on Your iPhone If You Don’t Want to Use the Feature Anymore.

Read more:

  • How to set up and use Voicemail on iPhone
  • iPhone Voicemail Not Working? 14 ways to fix it!
  • The best voicemail apps for iPhone