Voicemails are a pain, whether you’re leaving or receiving one. But iPhone’s voicemail-to-text transcription feature makes it easy to manage your messages. Find out how to use this feature and what to do if it stops working.
Voice-to-text transcription is part of Apple’s Visual Voicemail service, which displays your messages visually in the Phone app. Visual Voicemail lets play, delete, or scan over your voicemail inbox with ease.
When it’s working, voicemail-to-text transcription on your iPhone converts your voicemail messages to text. The clue’s in the name, I guess. The text transcription displays under each message, so it’s quick to find out what people said.
How do I get voicemail-to-text transcription on my iPhone?
Visual Voicemail is built into iOS, just open the Phone app.
Visual Voicemail, and its voice-to-text transcription, come with iOS on your iPhone. Because of that, you don’t need to do anything to turn it on.
That said, there are certain requirements for voicemail-to-text transcription to work. You need an iPhone 6S or later, an active data connection, and the service must be supported by your carrier.
Open the Phone app on your iPhone and tap the Voicemail button at the bottom right. You should see your Visual Voicemails and transcriptions here.
Why is voicemail-to-text transcription not working on my iPhone?
When Visual Voicemail is not working on your iPhone, you see an option to Call Voicemail instead.
You also need an active data connection for voice-to-text transcription to work. If you’ve run out of cellular data or don’t have a working Wi-Fi connection you can’t see transcribed messages.
Finally, voicemail-to-text transcription isn’t available for all languages. If your iPhone is set to a language other than English, the service may not be available to you.
Of course, those aren’t the only reasons voice-to-text might stop working on your iPhone. Many users have experienced software issues, and we’ve put together the best solutions for them below.
Why did my voicemail stop transcribing after I updated iOS?
It’s particularly common to get problems with voice-to-text transcription after updating iOS. We’re unclear why this causes so many issues.
It could be that the software update changes your device settings. Other times it might introduce a bug that Apple needs to patch in a future release.
Regardless, you may find a working solution below.
How do I fix voicemail-to-text transcription on my iPhone?
Follow these troubleshooting suggestions if voicemail-to-text transcription stopped working on your iPhone. Each suggestion we’ve listed was proven to work for users, though it’s difficult to predict which one will work for you.
1. Turn on Siri in the Settings
Siri might be responsible for your voice-to-text problems.
At first glance, it seems unrelated, but Siri’s voice-recognition is a crucial tool for voice-to-text transcription. If you turned off Siri on your iPhone, that may be why voicemail-to-text transcription is not working.
Even if Siri is already on, you should switch it off and on again to see if that helps.
How to turn Siri off for your iPhone:
Go to Settings > Siri & Search.
Tap to turn off Listen for “Hey Siri”.
On iPhone X and later: Tap to turn off Press Side Button for Siri.
On iPhone 8 and earlier: Tap to turn off Press Home for Siri.
Turn off Siri by disabling “Hey Siri” and Press Home/Side Button on your iPhone.
How to turn Siri on for your iPhone:
Go to Settings > Siri & Search.
On iPhone X and later: Tap to turn on Press Side Button for Siri.
On iPhone 8 and earlier: Tap to turn on Press Home for Siri.
Listen for “Hey Siri” is optional.
Restart your iPhone after turning Siri on again by holding the Side button and either Volume button. Then check your voicemails from the Phone app.
2. Change the language or voice for Siri
Try changing the language and accent Siri speaks with, it’s worked for some users!
Needing Siri turned on may have seemed strange enough. But you also need to set it to the correct voice and language! And by “correct,” I mean US English instead of British, Australian or any other dialect.
Change Siri’s Language and Voice to US English. Or if it’s already set to that, change to something else and then switch back.
This shouldn’t affect voicemail-to-text transcriptions but has worked for many users.
How to change the Language and Voice for Siri on an iPhone:
Go to Settings > Siri & Search.
Scroll down to the Ask Siri section.
Tap Language and set it to English (United States).
Tap Siri Voice and set it to American.
3. Update iOS and Carrier Settings
Updates to iOS often fix software errors that crept in with the last release. Sometimes these errors affect services like voicemail-to-text transcriptions. Out-of-date Carrier Settings can also cause Visual Voicemail problems since the data comes through your carrier.
Connect to the Internet and use the steps below to update iOS and Carrier Settings on your iPhone.
How to update iOS and Carrier Settings on an iPhone:
Go to Settings > General > Software Update.
Wait for your iPhone to check for updates.
Download and install any it finds.
Go to Settings > General > About.
Wait on this screen for 30 seconds.
Your iPhone will prompt you to update Carrier Settings if there is an update.
A pop-up window appears from the About page if you need to update your Carrier Settings.
5. Edit your voicemail greeting
Some users found success by editing the voicemail greeting. You can do this from the Phone app. Either record a new greeting or return your greeting to the default.
How to edit the greeting for voicemails:
Open the Phone app and go to the Voicemail tab.
Tap Greeting in the top left.
Choose Default or record a Custom greeting.
Tap Save.
Edit your voicemail greeting to see if that kickstarts voice-to-text transcriptions again.
6. Restore your iPhone with DFU mode
Time for the big guns. Erase your device and restore everything from a backup. This might risk your data and can take a lot of time.
Understandably, not everybody wants to go to this effort to get voicemail-to-text transcriptions working on their iPhone. But the only remaining option is to wait, with crossed fingers, for a new software update from Apple.
You should definitely backup your iPhone before restoring it using DFU mode.
Device Firmware Update (DFU) mode reinstalls every scrap of software and firmware on your iPhone. It’s the most complete level of restore possible, and the one we recommend. You need a computer running iTunes to put your iPhone in DFU mode.
Use the instructions for your particular iPhone below. If anything appears on your iPhone screen at the end, it is not in DFU mode.
How to restore using DFU mode on iPhone 8 or later:
Connect your iPhone to iTunes using a lightning-to-USB cable.
Quickly press and release the Volume Up button.
Quickly press and release the Volume Down button.
Press and hold the Side button.
After 3 seconds, also press and hold the Volume Down button.
After 5 seconds, release the Side button but keep holding the Volume Down button.
iTunes should detect a device in Recovery Mode, click Restore.
When your iPhone restarts, follow the prompts to recover your backup.
For more on DFU mode with iPhone 8 and later, see this article.
How to restore using DFU mode on iPhone 7:
Connect your iPhone to iTunes using a lightning-to-USB cable.
Press and hold the Side and Volume Down buttons.
After 8 seconds, release the Side button but keep holding the Volume Down button.
iTunes should detect a device in Recovery Mode, click Restore.
When your iPhone restarts, follow the prompts to recover your backup.
How to restore using DFU mode on iPhone 6S or earlier:
Connect your iPhone to iTunes using a lightning-to-USB cable.
Press and hold the Side and Home buttons.
After 8 seconds, release the Side button but keep holding the Home button.
iTunes should detect a device in Recovery Mode, click Restore.
When your iPhone restarts, follow the prompts to recover your backup.
After iTunes recognizes your iPhone, click Restore and then recover your backup.
For more on DFU mode for iPhone 7 and earlier models, check out this article.
Dan writes tutorials and troubleshooting guides to help people make the most of their technology. Before becoming a writer, he earned a BSc in Sound Technology, supervised repairs at an Apple Store, and even taught English in China.
None of this worked for me. Here’s what fixed mine with the help of Apple Support. Go into your message app and act as you’re going to text message someone. At the bottom of the keyboard, press the microphone icon. You will get a popup about using dictation for the first time. You need to accept this. Test by speaking and make sure your text is transcribed. Now, reboot your phone and wait a little while. Apple says this could take up tp 24 hours, but mine took only 5 minutes.
My iPhone X max stopped transcribing the entire voicemail. I only get about half of the message transcribed. I’ve gone into Apple store, and they were able to fix until the new update when it stopped working again. My carrier Sprint wasn’t able to help me fix the problem either. Loved the feature when it worked
My iPhone was just “improved” with another update including phone voicemail to text,
How do I get rid off this and just have the old voice mail recordings as in the past?
I’m a senior and don’t appreciate unsolicited “improvements”!
Thnx
I like to dictate my emails to iPhone because it is quick and easy to correct.
Recently my phone has stopped wrapping the text, both in the original message and in my reply.
This makes dictating practically impossible because I cannot easily see what I have just dictated.
Fantastic. Thank you so much. I’d tried to fix it for an hour before I found your guide!! Happy days to you….
None of this worked for me. Here’s what fixed mine with the help of Apple Support. Go into your message app and act as you’re going to text message someone. At the bottom of the keyboard, press the microphone icon. You will get a popup about using dictation for the first time. You need to accept this. Test by speaking and make sure your text is transcribed. Now, reboot your phone and wait a little while. Apple says this could take up tp 24 hours, but mine took only 5 minutes.
i dont like this feature, how do i disable it
I don’t get nothing I didn’t know iphone had this till I saw someone have it and I want it
My iPhone X max stopped transcribing the entire voicemail. I only get about half of the message transcribed. I’ve gone into Apple store, and they were able to fix until the new update when it stopped working again. My carrier Sprint wasn’t able to help me fix the problem either. Loved the feature when it worked
My iPhone was just “improved” with another update including phone voicemail to text,
How do I get rid off this and just have the old voice mail recordings as in the past?
I’m a senior and don’t appreciate unsolicited “improvements”!
Thnx
This helped immensely, thanks!
I like to dictate my emails to iPhone because it is quick and easy to correct.
Recently my phone has stopped wrapping the text, both in the original message and in my reply.
This makes dictating practically impossible because I cannot easily see what I have just dictated.
Hi Phil,
Is this happening on a single app or across all apps?
If all apps, check if you enabled the Zoom function by accident. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Zoom and toggle Zoom off