Forum Discussion
Visual Voicemail using Default Android 10 App (NOT T-Mobile App)?
Hi, I have a non-Tmobile provided Android 10 phone that has native Visual Voicemail app. Can I get that to work WITHOUT using T-Mobile Visual Voicemail app? If so how? Thanks, Sujith
I was going to add this to another thread, but it was locked. I discovered a work around. (persistence was key here). Note that I am not an expert, and your mileage may vary.
- If the T-Mobile account is older than a couple years, the voicemail box (on T-Mobile's end) needs an update. In order to do this, the user needs to request that a T-Mobile rep reset their voicemail account. (completely reset back to new)
- The voicemail box then needs to be authorized for visual voicemail, which is done through the T-Mobile Visual Voicemail app. The user should not accept any of the extra services, as this will designate the Visual Voicemail app as the only usable external app for the T-Mobile voicemail service.
- Then the user must delete the T-Mobile visual voicemail app from their phone. This app blocks the voicemail user settings on android devices and cannot remain installed if the user wants to use stock or built-in voicemail services.
- The user can then restart their device and activate visual voicemail in the stock Google phone app.
I have tested this on a few different android devices, including a Oneplus 9, Oneplus 6t, and a Samsung Galaxy A50. So far, it works 100% of the time. This tells me that it is likely a T-Mobile software issue, but I'm mostly just glad that there seems to be a common solution.
Please like my reply if this solution worked for you. If you are not willing to do all these steps.. then unless you have a Nexus device or an IPhone, get comfy with the T-Mobile visual voicemail app. A lot of people have spent a lot of time looking for a solution.
boopbeepboop wrote:Can you explain what you mean by "extra services"? Just want to make sure I'm not denying something I shouldn't
Hey boopbeepboop, It has been a while since I had done this and I don't quite remember. I'm pretty sure I just meant the "setup voicemail to text" or the "spam filter" services. You know.. the ones that are free for a time and then cost like $4 a month or something.
The biggest point here is that T-Mobile needs to manually reset your voicemail account. Like completely factory reset it. I believe it has something to do with cache or updates or something on their end. I imagine it is hard for them to push global updates on millions of voicemail accounts without bothering some people, so they probably just don't get around to it often.
That being said, after T-Mobile resets your voicemail completely and you go through these other steps, your voicemail box should be Android ready and should connect to the stock voicemail service seamlessly. At least the 3 phones I tried this on had success.
