With a combo of free Mac applications, you can record and save voicemails from your mobile phone.
You’ll need to install the following Mac applications:
Skype. You’ll use Skype to make a call to your mobile phone and listen to your voicemail. Though the app is free, you’ll need to buy Skype Credit to make a “Skype Out” call to your mobile phone.
Audacity. You’ll use this free application to record your phone call.
Soundflower and Soundflowerbed. This free system extension will connect Skype to Audacity. It’s like a laundry chute for audio; you can direct audio from any application to another. It does this by adding a pseudo “device” to your list of audio devices in System Preferences.
Instructions:
- Open Audacity, then Audacity Preferences. In the Audio I/O section, change the Recording device to Core Audio: Soundflower (2ch).
- Open Skype, then Skype Preferences. Under the Audio tab, change Audio Output to Soundflower (2ch).
- Open Soundflowerbed in your menu bar, then under Soundflower (2ch), select Built-in Output. Soundflowerbed allows you to monitor the audio passing through Soundflower, like having a window into the laundry shoot to watch clothes that fall past.
- Back in Audacity, click the Record button to begin recording.
- In Skype, make a call to your cell phone. When your greeting begins playing, press the sequence of keys that accesses your voicemail (probably the asterisk key followed by your password.) Listen to your voicemail as you normally would. Then hang up.
- Switch back to Audacity and click the Stop button. You should see the zig-zaggy waveform of the message you just recorded.
- Click the Audacity cursor directly before your message. (You can find out where this is by using the Play and Stop buttons.) From the Edit menu, choose Select then Track Start to Cursor. Push the Delete key on your keyboard. This will remove extraneous audio before your message.
- Click the Audacity cursor directly after your message. From the Edit menu, choose Select then Cursor to Track End. Push the Delete key. This will remove extraneous audio after your message.
- Choose Export from the File menu and save your voicemail. You can email it to a friend or save it in iTunes.
Thank you for putting these instructions together. This is a great tip for that occasional important voicemail that needs to be saved.
I have question. I feel I followed your instructions however the export stage (#9) for me appears unsuccessful. I went to file then my only choices where to “export wav” or “export mp3″. I saved it twice (once in wav and mp3) in to Itunes. I created a folder in ‘music’ and ‘pressed save’ for each voice mail (one in wav and one in Mp3 form). However I can not retrieve this folder. I did a search as well but it appears undetectable. I must admit I am a novice Macbook user but able to follow the instructions that you provided. Please help me. I would like to save my voice mails from audacity to Itune then unto a CD for playability.
Thank you in advance for your help.
my Father has passed away, and i have a message on a cell carrier’s voicemail storage…desperately trying to copy the only recording i have of his voice…a wonderful last message to me.
what do i do next?
thanks for making this option available!
I tried doing this as well. In Audacity I am unable to change my preferences to the soundflower, as well as in my skype preferences. I only have the first 2 drop down options available. Please help! I only have 2 days before I lose these messages and they are harrassment messages that need to be kept!
Thank you!
Suggestions?
Keep sharing!
I am able to get up to step 5 and call my cell phone from Skype and then key in my password for voicemail but it does not pick up the voicemail. The message is that the password is not valid. The password works fine on the cell phone just not from Skype.
Do you have any suggestions?
So, I am sure I am doing something wrong, but seem to have done everything you’ve said, step-by-step, and the audio doesn’t seem to be recording. It’s moving, but doesn’t seem to be picking up the audio from Skype. No squiggles, just a flat line down the center. Any ideas on what I could be doing incorrectly? Thanks!
Please help! My mailbox is full of my daughter’s messages and I can’t accept any more. I have followed the directions on saving voicemail on my Mac but haven’t quite figured it out. I downloaded Audacity, Soundflower and Skype.
On your instructions for Audacity, I cannot find anywhere to select Soundflower as the recording device. I don’t know if this is my problem or not.
When I call my cell phone from Skype and the greeting begins playing, I am unsure how to put in the sequence to access my voicemail. If I do it on the Skype keypad, it says it is not a valid phone number. On my phone (Verizon Droid) at that point, it just shows the incoming phone number, but the phone is no longer active. If I answer before the greeting, I don’t think I would be able to access voicemail as I would just be talking to myself through Skype, correct???
I truly appreciate any help you can give me. I’ve been trying to figure out how to save these voicemails for months! Grrr! Thanks and have a nice week!
Let me know if you have any questions — I know how important voicemails can be!
thank you so so much. i had a voicemail from my grandma who passed away and i could not figure out how to save it when i switched phones. thanks to your instructions i can have it forever. god bless
dana
I too was having troubles with Skype dialpad, but after upgrading to a newer version of Skype (5.3.0), everything seemed to work fine.
It seemed like I got a lot of background noise from the internal microphone? (laptop fan humming) but I was able to filter out the background noise using audacity. Maybe there is a better way to record without the noise… Tried muting skype which didn’t seem to do anything different, and turning off internal mic, which killed the audio completely.
Great tip! Glad I saved my $30 for rush processing and audio recording by doing it myself.
Follow instructions #1 and 3 above to set up Audacity and Soundflower.
In place of step #2:
(I believe I have both Google Talk and Google Voice installed — not sure which I’m technically using. Also, I’m in the “New Look” for Gmail, by the way.)
Scroll over the “Chat” button on the left side of your screen in Gmail. Click the little arrow that pops up on the right next to Chat and click on “Chat Settings” at the bottom.
On the screen that pops up, I have both microphone and speakers set to Soundflower (2ch).
Substitute Google for Skype in Step 5 — Click “Call Phone” on the left side of the screen in Gmail to get the Google dialpad.
I think that’s all I did differently. Let me know if this works!
I was having trouble figuring out how to open my messages when calling through Skype so I figured out this work-around. Maybe it will work for others. (I was so happy as I had been trying to save these messages of my daughter for about 2 years.) The only issue I seem to have and don’t understand is that even once I get the messages into iTunes, I still have to have Soundflower running in order to hear the messages play. If someone else can figure out how to play without Soundflower running, that would be good to know.
Saving Visual Voicemail to iTunes:
1) Open Visual Voice Mail on Android in programs.
Open downloaded file. It should open in the Audacity application.
2) Highlight message you wish to save.
3) Under “Options”, select Forward by Email.
4) Choose Yahoo Mail and type in email address. Message file will be sent.
5) Open Yahoo Mail on computer.
6) Download file.
7) Open Soundflower and iTunes apps.
9) Listen to message to determine a name for the file.
10) Go to file at top of the page and select “Export”
a) under Save As type file name
b) Save to desktop
c) Save in MP3 format
d) Hit Save
11) This will open a Metadata screen
a) Under Artist – type in caller name
b) Under Title – type in name of file
c) Under Year – type in the year of the message
d) Hit OK twice. Message will be saved in MP3 format on desktop.
12) Open MP3 file with iTunes.
13) In iTunes, the message will begin playing under Recently Added
14) Input the date and time of the message if you choose(you can find that
information on the selected message on the Android)
15) Create a playlist named Voicemail and move the message to that
folder and minimize iTunes.
16) Open the Voicemail Folder on the desktop (or wherever filed). Drag the
MP3 file into the Voicemail Folder for storage.
17) Highlight the Audacity app with the message still open.
18) Hit File – Save Project As
a) In the screen which opens, name the file again as you did the MP3 file.
b) In the save location, choose Voicemail Folder
c) Hit save.
d) The file will then be renamed and you can close it.
19) On the Visual Voice Mail on the Android, you may then erase the message.
20) Repeat for further messages. When you return to Yahoo Mail, create a folder for Voicemail and save the last message worked on in that folder.
My voicemail messages are within Skype, through my Skype Online number. Because I’ve listened to them on my iPhone, I believe they are saved locally on the iPhone (I’m not able to listen to them on my computer). The new version of Skype is a mess with iOS5 – it doesn’t even ring in – and so I need to go back to the previous version. I’d like to save my important voicemail messages before doing so… once I uninstall, I believe it will delete the messages. Thankfully, I synced my phone right before I upgraded Skype and so restoring the previous version will be easy. Will the process you’ve described here work for Skype voicemails as well? Thank you!