Voicemail forwarding helps you stay on top of time-sensitive messages when you’re busy or out of range. Instead of letting them sit in your inbox, you can forward key voicemails to teammates or to your email so they get handled faster.
Some phone providers also automatically delete messages after a certain period. Forwarding important or sensitive voicemails to your email can help you keep a permanent, searchable record — especially useful for follow-ups, compliance, or customer documentation.
Wondering how to forward voicemail? This guide breaks down the process for all devices, including an iPhone, Android, or laptop.
How to forward a voicemail on an iPhone
Here’s how you can forward voicemails from an iPhone or your iPad:
1. Open the Phone app and tap Voicemail at the bottom of the screen.
2. Tap the iPhone voicemail you wish to forward.
3. Tap the Share button on the right. This will bring up a menu with options to share your voicemail.
4. Choose a place to forward your voicemail. This could be via text message or email, depending on your preferred method of communication. If you want to share your voicemail with another Apple device, you can also AirDrop it.
⚠️ Note: iPhone and other iOS devices can transcribe the first 45 seconds of any voicemail recording. But when you forward a voicemail from the cell number on your iPhone, it will only send along the audio file. The transcript isn’t included.
For businesses, manually forwarding voicemails can get messy fast. There’s no central place to store or track them, and if a team member is out of office or swamped, you might find yourself chasing down messages or missing important follow-ups.
How to forward a voicemail message on Android
Unless you’re using an app like Google Voice, you’ll need to install a third-party app or your carrier’s visual voicemail app to access and forward your voicemail on Android.
⚠️ Note: Some carriers allow you to access your voicemail from your phone app. These include:
- Some AT&T plans
- Cellcom
- Coriolis
- Google Fi
- O2
- Orange
- T-Mobile
If you can’t access visual voicemail from your phone, here’s the workaround:
- Download your carrier’s visual voicemail app. For this example, we’ll use Cricket Visual Voicemail.
- Open your voicemail box and select the voicemail you want to forward.
- Tap the three dots in the top right corner and select Share.
- Select an app to send your voicemail. This could be Messenger, Gmail, Outlook, or your default texting app.
Keep in mind you can’t forward voicemail transcripts using your Android device. However, you can select Copy Message Text and paste it into a text or email draft.
But for teams, this method can get disorganized fast. Voicemails end up scattered with no customer context, and it’s harder to keep everyone in the loop. A shared VoIP number offers a cleaner, centralized way to manage voicemails with all the context in one place.
How to forward a voicemail using a VoIP app
VoIP apps with business voicemail systems like Quo can help you easily access voicemails. Every team member on the same shared phone number can call and text from the same number. Plus, you can check voicemail without a third-party app — and do it directly from any internet-enabled device, like a computer, phone, or tablet.
And if a colleague needs to review the message, you can easily tag them in a specific conversation. If you need a business number, simply sign up for as many toll-free, local US, or Canadian phone numbers as you need.
If you still wish to forward a voicemail, here’s how you can by using our VoIP app:
- Open the conversation with the voicemail you want to forward.
- Press and hold the voicemail.
- Tap Share and choose where to send your voicemail.
Quo isn’t just for forwarding voicemails, though. It gives you one inbox for calls, texts, and messages, plus tools to simplify your communication workflows. You can also:
- See call and voicemail transcriptions in context of each customer conversation
- Automatically send voicemail notifications to any email inbox or Slack channel
- Call routing via an auto-attendant (IVR)
- Save time texting with auto-replies and snippets
- Use AI tools like Sona, our voice agent, to avoid missing calls (and customers)
- Apply custom AI call tags to surface specific trends and identify coaching opportunities for your team
You can start forwarding voicemails with Quo today when you sign up for our seven-day free trial.
How to forward a voicemail from a computer
If you use a platform like Quo that works on a desktop, you can forward voicemails directly from your computer. You can even set up automatic forwarding to email or Slack, so you never miss an important message, even when you’re away from your inbox.
If you’re using Quo, here’s how to set up automatic voicemail notifications to your email inbox:
1. In the web or desktop app, select Settings from the left-hand menu.
2. Click Phone Numbers under Workspace.
3. Choose the Quo number you wish to set up automatic voicemail forwarding for.
4. Scroll to Integrations in your phone number’s settings and click Connect to your email.
5. Notifications are sent to the email address associated with your Quo account by default. To update the email address, click “…” and add as many email addresses as you want (comma separated).
6. Select the events you should receive email notifications for. By default, you’ll receive notifications for all incoming voicemails, text messages (SMS and MMS), and missed calls.
All new voicemail messages will go directly to the email address(es) you’ve specified. Each notification includes:
- Visual voicemail transcription
- Link to play back the recording
- Date and time the caller left a message
- Caller’s phone number so you can return the call
Learn more about how to connect Quo to your email.
When should you send voicemail messages elsewhere?
Voicemail can be useful in a variety of situations, especially if you’re in sales or customer service or run your own company. Here are a few key scenarios:
- When a customer leaves a voicemail expressing frustration and you need to forward it to a manager, owner, or team lead to flag the issue
- When you receive a voicemail that’s more relevant to another coworker
- When you get a voicemail with positive feedback and want to share news with everyone
- When you want to archive the voicemail for your records
- When you’d like to ask a question or delegate a task or project to someone else. (Psst…In Quo, you can assign tasks to teammates using internal threads, no need to forward anything.)
Forwarding voicemails is a workaround, Quo is the fix
If you’re looking for an easy way to filter and organize voicemails you receive from customers or clients, a cloud phone system platform can help you stay on top of all your phone communication.
With Quo’s shared numbers, your whole team can access the same voicemail inbox, so there’s no need to forward anything. You also get voicemail transcriptions, call routing, integrations with tools like Slack and email, AI features like Sona (our AI voice agent), and custom call tags to help you stay organized as you grow.
Get your team on one number. Try Quo today for free for seven days.
FAQs
If your voicemails aren’t being forwarded, here are some troubleshooting tips:
– “Message failed to deliver” or “delivery failed” errors: This might be happening when trying to forward across different carrier networks. One possible solution is downloading the voicemail as an audio file and then emailing it — or using VoIP alternatives like Quo instead.
– “Unrecognizable destination number” problems: This error might occur if your carrier doesn’t recognize numbers outside their network or if you’ve input the number incorrectly. A solution might be forwarding to a number within the same network or using a VoIP solution.
– Voicemail forwarding delayed by hours or days: Voicemail forwarding delays can happen during network congestion or system maintenance. Make sure to check in with your carrier about any known outages or service disruptions and whether they offer more reliable forwarding options.
– Forward/share button missing or greyed out: This could mean your carrier doesn’t support voicemail forwarding, the message is too old, or there are restrictions on your account. Try downloading the voicemail (if possible) and emailing it manually. If you have a voicemail transcript, you could forward that instead.
Yes. On an iPhone, you can share a voicemail to another phone number from your phone’s default app. On Android, you’d need a third-party app like your carrier’s (e.g., Verizon) visual voicemail app.
A VoIP app gives you more ways to forward voicemails. With Quo (formerly OpenPhone), you can share messages with your contacts or set them to automatically forward to an email inbox or Slack channel.
Voicemail forwarding lets you send a voicemail to another person or platform, like email or Slack, so others can access or act on the message. It’s useful for sharing, delegating, or keeping records.
Consider it similar to call forwarding or text forwarding, but instead of text-based communication, you’re forwarding a voice message.
Yes, you can forward voicemails from your phone to another person. You can sYes, you can forward voicemails from your phone to another person. You can send the audio files via text message, AirDrop, messaging platforms like Slack, email, and more. With Quo (formerly OpenPhone), you can also include the voicemail transcription when you automatically forward a voice message to any Slack channel or email address.
Your phone automatically saves voicemail messages unless your voicemail inbox is full. Just open your voicemail app and select a saved message. Then, you can forward it through text, email, or a communication tool like Slack.
You can use any phone or laptop to manually forward voicemails to your email. On an iPhone, tap the voicemail and use the Share button to email it; on Android, you may need your carrier’s voicemail app to do the same. With a VoIP app like Quo, you can integrate with your email provider and automatically push voicemails to your email inbox.
You can use apps like Quo, Google Voice, YouMail, or your carrier’s visual voicemail app (e.g., Verizon or AT&T) to forward voicemails to your email.
No, call forwarding sends incoming calls to another number, while voicemail stores unanswered calls as voice messages you can listen to later.
