Visual Voice mail

[revolution5150]

Hey Guys,

Sorry if this is not in the right place. I have a s5 and was wondering if there was a good 3rd party app that can get me free visual voice mail. I have verizon service. Any help would be great. Thank you.

 

[thunderbolt_nick]

Personally, I use Google Voice (I guess it's technically Hangouts now). The voice-to-text isn't so great but I live with it. Just so I understand though, what features are you looking for in Visual Voicemail?

 

[Jonny Kansas]

I use Google voice (inside hangouts) as well. Gets the job done, though there's a little trick to set it up & you have to register for a free Google voice number.

As Nick said, the transcription isn't the best, but at least you can hit play from within hangouts & hear the message without having to call.

I also like that it shows voicemails right in line with texts from each contact since I use hangouts for texting too.

Sent from my Note 4

 

[pdholtz]

Try YouMail, it works great for me! Plus it greats your contacts by name.

 

[FoxKat]

Try YouMail, it works great for me! Plus it greats your contacts by name.

Both Google Voice and YouMail have visual voice mail but like mentioned with GV you are using the phone number you select, not your main cellular number assigned to your phone by your cellular carrier. YM gives you visual voice mail on your main phone number. It's free and as mentioned it's also intelligent. It uses the caller's Caller ID to actually greet your caller by their first name. It freaks people out and is certainly an attention-getter.

It also had lots of customization such as personal individualized greets for everyone in your contacts list. You can record a different greeting on your own voice for each or you can lump many into one category and have them all greeted the same. You can also use the greeting function to play a specific recording to certain people you don't want to hear from, which can tell them your number is disconnected ( actual recording of the phone company's disconnected message) , or that their call is being reported to the Attorney General for harassment (recorded by a pretty official sounding person), etc.

You can even play some pretty funny tricks in people. For instance let's say your friend Jonny is deserving of a prank. You can record a greeting that goes something like this...

" Hey Johnny, long time no talk, what's up? (Long pause), Yeah that sounds pretty cool. Oh sorry I must be mistaken, I'm not really here right now and you're actually talking to my voicemail. Please leave a message after the tone. Thank you."

I've gotten some really funny responses that way.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youmail.android.vvm

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Having google voice work for your main carrier supplied number is as simple as setting up call forwarding. I use gv for my vzw number.

It also has the ability to select custom messages per caller. Also for a group of callers if I remember right.

Anyway, both are great options.

Sent from my Note 4

 

[FoxKat]

Having google voice work for your main carrier supplied number is as simple as setting up call forwarding. I use gv for my vzw number.

It also has the ability to select custom messages per caller. Also for a group of callers if I remember right.

Anyway, both are great options.

Sent from my Note 4

Weird. I can't see how that would work considering that Google voice calls come into the phone through your carrier issued phone number. I went through my phone call log on the bill and noticed a lot of these incoming calls from one long distance number and then noticed a lot of calls going out to another long distance number. Turns out the incoming calls were calls I answered from Google, and the other ones were calls I made with Google voice. I wound up putting both phone numbers on my Friends and Family 10 list.

 

[FoxKat]

By adding those numbers to Friends and Family I avoid the airtime charges from eating up my monthly minutes allotment. I'm on the Nationwide Calling Plan and paying $70/month for 1,400 minutes and realized those two numbers were whacking me for my minutes.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Weird. I can't see how that would work considering that Google voice calls come into the phone through your carrier issued phone number. I went through my phone call log on the bill and noticed a lot of these incoming calls from one long distance number and then noticed a lot of calls going out to another long distance number. Turns out the incoming calls were calls I answered from Google, and the other ones were calls I made with Google voice. I wound up putting both phone numbers on my Friends and Family 10 list.

I used it for my vzw voice-mail since it came out. You set your vzw phone to forward calls to your gv number by dialing 3 different codes + your gv number and pressing send on each, then gv gets calls intended for your vzw voice-mail & displays then in-app if you have gv or hangouts.

I had to stop using it when they tweaked my account after my cousins left it and I lost friends & family, because even just using gv for voice-mail uses minutes. I use VERY few minutes, but got a notification that I was approaching my limit. I'm back on it now because I got unlimited minutes when I dropped unlimited data. Not the best trade, but it fits my needs.

Sent from my Note 4

 

[Jonny Kansas]

By adding those numbers to Friends and Family I avoid the airtime charges from eating up my monthly minutes allotment. I'm on the Nationwide Calling Plan and paying $70/month for 1,400 minutes and realized those two numbers were whacking me for my minutes.

Yup. See the post I created while you were posting this one.

Sent from my Note 4

 

[jackiescivic]

One of the last software updates gives you basic visual voice-mail for free. If you want transcribed messages, you have to pay. I love not having to enter in my pin each time someone leaves a message.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Jonny Kansas]

One of the last software updates gives you basic visual voice-mail for free. If you want transcribed messages, you have to pay. I love not having to enter in my pin each time someone leaves a message.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Can you explain that to me? How is it visual voice-mail if you can't see it transcribed? Just curious.

Sent from my Note 4

 

[FoxKat]

Can you explain that to me? How is it visual voice-mail if you can't see it transcribed? Just curious.

Sent from my Note 4

I think the term Visual Voicemail more broadly defines any voicemail where you can access it visually (GUI), rather than only through a dial-in number. Since the new feature Jackiscivic mentioned gives you access to the voicemail via the graphic interface and the audio files can be selected and played without a dial-up interface it technically qualifies as Visual Voicemail.

 

[Jonny Kansas]

Well shoot. Maybe I don't need Google voice for voicemail then. The transcription leaves something to be desired, but I liked playing them right on the device.

Does it use your data to download them?

Sent from my Note 4

 

[FoxKat]

I do believe that any transmitted sound files constitute data transmission. They are very small files, probably only 8K quality since voice communication is generally in the range of about 300Hz to about 3,400Hz and using an 8K band allows for even higher quality without sacrificing a large data package. So the files are very small comparatively, and of course are generally short - typically less than a minute as well.