iPhone, Take a Message

Q. I thought the iPhone was supposed to transcribe voice mail messages, but that doesn’t seem to be happening on mine. Is there a setting I need to turn on to make it work?

A. The iPhone can display text transcriptions of your recorded voice mail messages — as long as you have an iPhone 6s model or later. The phone also needs to be running the iOS 10 system software, and your wireless carrier must support the Visual Voicemail feature. (Most national carriers support it, although the transcription text is currently available only in American and Canadian English.)

Unlike voice mail systems that require you to dial in to your account and listen to messages in the order they were received, Visual Voicemail displays a list of messages and allows you to listen to them in any order you wish.

On compatible iPhones, you can see transcriptions by opening the Phone app from the home screen, tapping the Voicemail tab at the bottom and selecting a voice mail message. The text of the message should appear between the caller’s name and the Play button to hear the audio recording. The transcription feature is still in the testing stage and text accuracy may vary.

If your phone meets the system requirements but you do not see the transcriptions, try joining a Wi-Fi network and checking your voice mail from that connection instead of just using the cellular network. Apple says that the transcription of a voice mail message may take up to 24 hours before you see it, but suggests using the Siri assistant to dictate some text and then rechecking the voice mail list.

Even if you do not have a late-model iPhone (or any iPhone), you can still find apps and services that convert voice mail messages to text. Google Voice and YouMail are among the alternatives offering voice mail transcription for Android and iOS phones, and some wireless carriers even have their own apps.