Voicemails got deleted after updating to iOS 17.4 on iPhone

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'm the so-called tech-guru of the family, and I take care of backing up and updating my wife's devices. I upgraded her phone to 17.4, and it only took a day for her to discover - to her shock and sorrow - that her deceased mother's voicemail messages, along with a recently-deceased and much beloved older friend, were gone. Please, Apple, figure out a way to restore these old VMs! I feel personally responsible for my wife's VM loss now. :-(

Lolo_slayz wrote:

Those voicemails are probably old and your apple device eventually deletes voicemails over time.

I'm not sure that's true. I have voicemails going back to 2017.

17.4.1 brought back the missing voicemails on my wife's 2020 iPhone SE. Such a relief! Thanks to Josh (and Brian) at Apple who worked on getting this resolved so quickly!

Now that I know how important those VMs are from my wife's deceased mother, I'll be sure to back them up from now on. You never know how important something is to people until you think you've lost it. :-)

iOS 17.4.1 was released today (3/21). It sounds like the VMs are probably still there, just the option to access them was broken.

Mine are gone as well. Very upset because my oldest brother passed away and I had saved his voice. I hate updates

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.

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.

IOS 17.4 and IOS 17.4.1 Update. Today, on 3/22/24 an empathetic Apple Rep. assisted in resolving my deceased mother’s lost voicemails which immediately were gone when I updated to IOS 17.4. Today an Apple Rep. guided me to update to the newly released IOS 17.4.1 and every single precious saved voicemail of my deceased mother repopulated into my saved voicemails. I am so happy and thankful Apple released this 17.4.1. Now I am saving each vmail into a file. Thank you to the community for sharing your suggestions. I am in tons of gratitude for 17.4.1 release.

AZ3018 wrote:

Me too. Just wholesale deleted all of them.

There’s a lot of discussion on this subject, so you can learn something by reading the rest of the thread you posted to and also this thread→All Voicemails Missing after iOS 17.4 upd… - Apple Community and also this thread→“No Voicemail” after iOS 17 Update - Apple Community

But the most useful thing you can do is contact Apple support. Apple’s formal support can be reached several ways:

• You can provide feedback to Apple at→ Product Feedback - Apple where your issue or suggestion will be recorded, but you will not get a reply

For personalized support:

• Click on “Support” at the top or bottom of this page
• Go to Contact Official Apple Support

Note that both of the above have options to receive a callback or chat

• Install the Apple Support app on your iPhone or iPad - you can contact support directly from the app, and the tech will have (with your permission) access to diagnostic data on your phone
• Call Apple Support; the phone numbers are in this link→Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support
• Make a Genius Bar appointment at an Apple Store→Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple
• Find an Apple store or Apple partner service provider→Find Locations

About the only communications method not used by Apple support is inbound email, probably because the volume would be overwhelming, and separating the wheat from the chaff (or, to us engineers, a poor signal to noise ratio) would be almost impossible. 

There are multiple people saying they backed up their phones and the voicemails are still gone. Shes correct this is so unforgivable and soo unfortunate. If you have nothing helpful to contribute to the thread then don’t comment at all. People are literally hurting because of this it’s like grieving their loss fresh as it was when it happened so kindly kick rocks

Lolo_slayz wrote:

Those voicemails are probably old and your apple device eventually deletes voicemails over time. That’s what happened to me. I’m sry for what happened

Absolutely FALSE!