If there is a voicemail from them on your phone, do this today. Not because anything is wrong, but because most carriers delete voicemails automatically after 30 days, and phones get lost, replaced, and reset. People find out too late more often than you'd think.

This takes about five minutes. You do not need to listen to it if you are not ready. You just need to move it somewhere safe.

On an iPhone

  1. Open the Phone app and tap Voicemail at the bottom right.
  2. Tap the message from them so it expands.
  3. Tap the share icon (a square with an arrow pointing up).
  4. Choose Save to Files. Pick a folder you will find again — iCloud Drive is fine — and tap Save.

That's it. The file is now a normal audio file (usually ending in .m4a) that lives outside the voicemail system. You can also AirDrop it to a Mac, or email it to yourself from the same share menu.

If the share icon isn't there, your carrier is using an older "visual voicemail" setup. Two options: call your carrier and ask them to email the file (most will), or use the recording method at the end of this article.

On an Android phone

Android varies by manufacturer and carrier, but it's usually one of these:

  1. Open the Phone app and go to Voicemail.
  2. Tap and hold the message, or tap the three dots (⋮) next to it.
  3. Look for Save, Export, or Share. Save it to your phone's storage or Google Drive.

On Samsung phones the option is often under the message itself once you tap it. If your carrier's own voicemail app is installed (Verizon, T‑Mobile, AT&T all have one), open that instead; the save option is there.

If there is no save option at all

Some carriers simply don't let you export. There is a workable, slightly old-fashioned answer: play it and record it.

  • Put the voicemail on speaker, at a good volume, in a quiet room.
  • On a second phone (a partner's, a friend's), open the voice recorder app and hit record, held close to the speaker.
  • Play the voicemail. Stop the recording a second after it ends.

It won't be studio quality. It will be their voice, and that is what matters.

Then: make two copies

One copy is not saved. Phones break. Put the file in at least two places:

  • A cloud folder (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox).
  • Email it to yourself with a subject line you'll be able to search for in ten years: "Mom voicemail — do not delete."

If other people in the family would want it, send it to them now rather than later. Grief makes everything harder to organise, and "I'll do it next week" has a way of not happening.

A word about listening

You don't have to. Some people play it every day for a while and then rarely. Some save it and don't listen for a year. Some never do and are glad it's there. None of those are wrong. The point of saving it is to have the choice.

A short note about us: AIGriefBot can use a recording like this — a voicemail, a video clip, a voice note — to let you hear replies in their voice. If that sounds like something you'd want, here is how it works. If it doesn't, we hope the steps above helped anyway.