Saving voicemails from the dead
July 25, 2016 12:57 PM Subscribe
My mother's husband has died, but we have his voice in her voice mailbox. We have Verizon and we'd like to leave. I know there's a way to download voice mails, but what is it? How do we do it? Please explain it to me like I'm five. I see there is a similar question from 2007, but surely things have changed since then.
if the phone has a headphone port, that's going to be the easiest method. plug it into a laptop with a microphone input, start recording in garageband (mac) or audacity (windows) and then hit play on the voicemail.
posted by noloveforned at 1:35 PM on July 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by noloveforned at 1:35 PM on July 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
I would go into the Verizon store and have them transfer the files for you (you don't have to say you're leaving, just that you want a backup on your computer). I know they helped a friend of mine dealing with this exact situation and were really nice about it.
posted by rainbowbrite at 1:58 PM on July 25, 2016
posted by rainbowbrite at 1:58 PM on July 25, 2016
Response by poster: Wireless, Samsung Galaxy, but I don't know the edition or operating system.
posted by blnkfrnk at 2:00 PM on July 25, 2016
posted by blnkfrnk at 2:00 PM on July 25, 2016
I used the Tape A Call app to record my deceased mom's voicemail message.
posted by amro at 2:20 PM on July 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by amro at 2:20 PM on July 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Okay. This gets a lot easier if you have Visual Voicemail. If you don't, I believe Verizon offers a free trial of it.
If you do, you can simply tap on the voicemail and look for options to forward it, and you can send it to an email address as an audio file.
It might be worth signing up for the trial to be able to do this simply.
Feel free to memail me if you want more help.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:24 PM on July 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
If you do, you can simply tap on the voicemail and look for options to forward it, and you can send it to an email address as an audio file.
It might be worth signing up for the trial to be able to do this simply.
Feel free to memail me if you want more help.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:24 PM on July 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
I used Call Recorder to record the "leave a message" part of my dad's voicemail when he died. As far as I can tell, it should work fine for calling voicemail as well. By default it records all calls, but you can turn that off after a single call.
My advice would be to download that or a similar app and send the file to yourself via email. Back it up to multiple locations. If this app doesn't work, use another. Don't delete the message until you've stored it in at least two places, at least one of which should be local.
posted by Hactar at 8:20 AM on July 26, 2016
My advice would be to download that or a similar app and send the file to yourself via email. Back it up to multiple locations. If this app doesn't work, use another. Don't delete the message until you've stored it in at least two places, at least one of which should be local.
posted by Hactar at 8:20 AM on July 26, 2016
Boldbeast is a great recording app. Just call into your voicemail and listen to the messages while recording is active. Then you can send the file via google drive or dropbox.
posted by Sophont at 8:11 AM on July 27, 2016
posted by Sophont at 8:11 AM on July 27, 2016
Response by poster: If anyone is with Verizon, this is the link they gave us when I contacted them, and it looks like that's what we'll go with. Thanks!
posted by blnkfrnk at 8:52 PM on August 19, 2016
posted by blnkfrnk at 8:52 PM on August 19, 2016
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by zamboni at 1:17 PM on July 25, 2016