How to permanently delete voicemails on iPhone

iOS 9 Voicemail sharing teaser 001

Since its inception the iPhone has supported Visual Voicemail, a feature that lets you see a list of your voicemails and choose which one to interact with without having to wade through all of them.

These messages are saved forever until you manually delete them, or your carrier erases them. Keep in mind that your carrier might not support the Visual Voicemail feature at all.

If you have set up and use Visual Voicemail on your iPhone, voicemails people leave in your inbox can quickly pile up, causing not just unnecessary clutter in the interface but also wasting your iPhone’s precious storage space.

Follow the instructions provided in this tutorial to delete unwanted voicemails and claim back the storage space they occupy.

How to permanently delete voicemails on your iPhone

Step 1: Open the Phone app on your iPhone.

Step 2: Choose the Voicemail option among the tabs that are lined up alongside the bottom. A list of voicemails you have received appears.

Step 3: Tap on a message to remove from the handset, and hit the red Delete button.

Delete voicemails iPhone

Step 4: Repeat the process for any other voicemails you wish to remove. Deleted voicemails are actually saved in the Deleted Voicemails folder within the Phone app, which functions like the Recently Deleted album in Photos. You must take an extra step to remove them permanently from your device.

RELATED: How to save voicemails as notes/text memos and share them using Messages, Mail or AirDrop

Step 5: Tap Deleted Messages, then hit the Clear All button located in the upper-right and confirm that you wish to permanently remove all deleted voicemails.

Delete iPhone voicemails permanently

Once your voicemails are deleted from that folder, they’re removed from the the filesystem permanently and cannot be retrieved.

RELATED: How to undelete voicemails on your iPhone

Keep in mind that you might lose the visual voicemails that are saved on your iPhone after inserting a new SIM card. Also, your carrier might keep voicemails on its servers even after you remove them permanently from your iPhone.

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