Voicemails got deleted after updating to iOS 17.4 on iPhone

I had the same issue after updating to OS 17.51 - all old voice mails disappeared.

Contacted Apple tech support, and here's what they recommended:

"Let's try to reset network settings on your device so please Tap Settings > General > Transfer or Reset iPhone > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

Resetting network settings resets Wi-Fi networks and passwords, as well as cellular and VPN settings that the customer has used before."

This restored my old VM's that were previously missing. Hard reset my phone 2x, that did not help (prior to contacting Apple).

Verizon is our carrier and they do not allow you to see/view/hear voice messages. My phone was also backed up via iCloud, but apparently VM's not stored there.

Good luck.

SOLUTION ( kind of ) call your voice mail. enter your voicemail password (or create one with your carrier) and the voice mails are there in the carriers server. ( at least in my case they were). Hope this helps since apple and Verizon are worthless about this KNOWN ISSUE

If you do not know how to do this . Simply call your phone number from your phone or anyphone and hit # then enter your password - creste one first if you do not have one yet- and BOOM. they are there.

mtngrl17 wrote:

Me too. I’m in tears. Also angry, we pay plenty of money for device, carrier (Verizon in my case), it should be our decision to delete something from OUR PHONES!!

Contact Verizon. It's remotely possible that, if this happened within the last 30 days, the voicemails may still exist on their servers. Mind you, it's going to take a lot of time and effort on your part to get to someone who can give you an answer. You're going to need to be very persistent and keep escalating the call. Be polite. At least when I worked for them, Verizon employees were allowed to end calls with people they deemed to be abusive. And that gets recorded in your account. I'm not suggesting you are a bad or rude person, just that if emotions are running high, even the best of us can behave in ways that others may find distressing.

I'm not saying you'll get what you want, but if this is important to you, it may be worth trying.

No one lost sentimental voice mails. Updating to iOS 17.4.1 fixes the issue.

I had vm back to 2013 of my deceased Mom and my Grandson when he was little. I’ve transferred all of my info 4x since then to new iPhones and updated iPhones and never lost anything. Called Verizon and my vm and I had probably 15 vm’s saved and when I called my vm only 6 were there and only 5 showing on the screen. Went up levels and basically tech told me they are gone on their server and Apple’s newest iOS probably has something in the update to wipe out all vm’s. So why would only 6 still be there if you’re telling me the update wiped them out? Silence on the other side and then a I don’t know. I find this hard to believe and got no where with them. I tried all the fixes that everyone suggested and still only the 6 newest vms’s. Who’s ever fault this is I am amazed that the public was not informed that this could happen. I would have never updated my phone. I also never knew that I could send the vm to my files or email to save them. I saved the ones I have now but I will never get the ones back of my Mom and Grandson. Very upset.

Dial *86 send and all your voicemails should be there.

I suspect that those messages are long gone if your carrier does not have them (voicemail is a carrier feature). As someone with AT&T and the latest iOS, I can verify that my voicemails are still on my device. I also export special ones to keep safely, just in case.

If you backed up your device to your computer, you can use the backup to restore your data. Otherwise, you would need to check with your carrier. For AT&T you can also dial "1" to access voicemail. See, https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1009101/

I, too, lost all my voicemails in one fell swoop after upgrading to iOS 17.4 — I had over 30 voicemails going back to 2017. Sentimental voicemails.

This is a huge Apple fail. This is not the fault of the carrier. I am seeing this happening to iPhone users all over the internet and reddit and with different carriers.

😡

Justwright11 wrote:

I lost my husband and my best friends voicemail due to this up. I do have a 11 iPhone which is bend on updates so I have them .how do I transfer these to something to save. Grief is very difficult some days to cope this disaster

What you should do, and should have been doing all along for important voicemails, is to save them to more permanent storage. Tap on an email, tap the Share icon (the square with an arrow) and save it to Files, Email, or almost anywhere else.

Keep in mind that the master source for voicemails is your carrier’s email server. Most save up to 40 voicemails. Once that number is reached, either it will tell callers that the email server is full, or it will delete the oldest ones, depending on carrier. Voicemails were never intended to be kept forever; they are transient, and need to be saved to something more permanent if you want to keep them.

LatteChic wrote:

I did have everything backed up in the iCloud, I pay monthly for it! Again, another useless Apple feature

I'm not talking about automated back ups. I'm talking about archiving important files in ways that they can be accessed without the particular device. You can save voicemail messages to Files as simple sound files that can stored and accessed from pretty much any kind of computer. They become independent of my carrier and Apple. I also store important text conversations as pdfs.

Here's what I know... when I went to bed, I had 30+ voicemails, including 8 unread messages. When I woke up, there were only 4 messages left dating back to 2021, only ONE from this year, including messages I had previously deleted. There were NO "deleted" messages. My phone did not show that it had updated but I don't know if may have done it while I was sleeping. There was no message showing an update had happened.

Verizon said it only showed four messages on its server. When I called my own voicemail, there were four messages — although they were slightly different than the ones on my phone.

I tried restarting the phone, toggling airplane mode, and also updating to 17.5.1. But alas, everything is still gone. It's really strange to me that Verizon has no record or backup of messages that were there less than 24 hours ago, and also has no record of activity such as deleted voicemails.

What an absolute nightmare!

IOS 17.4 update just deleted all my sentimental saved voicemails from my deceased mother. I am in shock!!!! I wish I had viewed this community group prior to updating the latest IOS 17.4 version. I am still working with Verizon and Apple taking it to the top level if necessary to retrieve all my deceased mothers precious voicemails. I feel sick they are gone!!!

I just lost all my voicemails too. These include irreplaceable voicemails from my father, when he could talk before he passed away last fall. It is crazy that with all the technology, voicemails aren't automatically backed up to iCloud like everything else.

Apple needs to do something about this or at least retract this update and warn people. They should NOT be passing the buck to the carriers.