How to Set Up Voicemail-to-Email on Your VoIP System

What Is Voicemail-to-Email?

Voicemail-to-email is a feature that automatically sends your voicemail messages to your email inbox as audio attachments. Instead of dialling into a voice mailbox and listening to messages one by one, you receive an email notification the moment someone leaves a voicemail, complete with the recording attached as an audio file. This means you can listen to messages from anywhere — on your phone, laptop or tablet — without needing to be near your desk phone.

Benefits of Voicemail-to-Email

Never miss a message — Voicemails arrive in your inbox instantly, even when you're away from the office or in a meeting.
Listen anywhere — Play voicemail recordings on any device that can open email attachments.
Easy to forward — Forward a voicemail to a colleague simply by forwarding the email.
Searchable archive — Voicemails stored in your email can be searched, tagged and organised like any other message.
Faster response — Scan voicemail notifications quickly and prioritise callbacks.

How to Enable Voicemail-to-Email

Enabling voicemail to email on your hosted VoIP system is typically a simple configuration change in your admin portal:

Step 1: Access Your VoIP Admin Portal

Step 2: Navigate to Voicemail Settings

Find the Voicemail section, which is usually located under your extension settings or user profile.

Step 3: Enable Email Notification

Toggle the voicemail-to-email option to enabled. You'll typically see two options:

Send email with attachment — Sends the voicemail audio file (WAV or MP3) as an email attachment. This is the most common and useful option.
Send notification only — Sends an email alerting you to the new voicemail but without the audio file. You'll need to log into the portal or dial in to listen.

Step 4: Enter Your Email Address

Enter the email address where you want voicemail notifications delivered. You can usually specify multiple addresses if needed.

Step 5: Choose Whether to Keep or Delete

Decide whether the voicemail should be kept in the voice mailbox after being emailed (useful as a backup) or deleted after sending (to prevent the mailbox from filling up).

Configuring Email Addresses

You have flexibility in where voicemails are delivered:

Personal email — Each user's individual work email address. This is the standard setup for most extensions.
Shared mailbox — A shared email address (e.g., sales@yourcompany.co.uk) so that the entire team receives voicemail notifications for a shared line or queue.
Multiple addresses — Some systems allow you to send voicemail notifications to multiple email addresses simultaneously.
Mobile email — If staff are frequently on the move, ensure their mobile email is configured so they receive voicemail notifications on their smartphone.

Recording Custom Voicemail Greetings

A professional voicemail greeting ensures callers know they've reached the right person and encourages them to leave a useful message:

Personal greeting — "Hello, you've reached [Name] at [Company]. I'm unable to take your call right now. Please leave your name, number and a brief message and I'll return your call as soon as possible."
Recording methods — Most systems allow you to record a greeting by dialling into your voicemail (e.g., dial *97), through the web portal, or by uploading a pre-recorded audio file.
Temporary greetings — Set a temporary greeting when you're on holiday or out of the office, then revert to your standard greeting when you return.

Voicemail Transcription (Speech-to-Text)

Some hosted VoIP providers offer voicemail transcription, which automatically converts the voicemail audio into text and includes it in the email notification. This allows you to:

Read voicemails silently — Scan the text in meetings or noisy environments without needing to listen to the audio.
Search voicemail content — Text transcriptions are fully searchable in your email client.
Respond faster — Quickly identify the caller's request without listening to the full recording.

Transcription accuracy varies depending on the caller's accent, background noise and audio quality, but modern speech-to-text engines are highly accurate for clear recordings.

Managing Voicemail Storage

Voicemail boxes have a limited capacity. To prevent your mailbox from filling up:

Enable delete-after-email — If you're confident your email is reliable, configure the system to delete voicemails from the phone system after they've been emailed to you.
Set a maximum message count — Configure the maximum number of messages your mailbox can hold (e.g., 50 or 100).
Regularly clean up — Periodically log into the voicemail system and delete old messages.
Monitor full mailboxes — A full voicemail box means callers can't leave messages. Some systems send an alert when the mailbox is nearly full.

Out-of-Hours Voicemail Routing

Configure your system to route calls to voicemail outside business hours:

Set up time-based routing so that calls outside your opening hours go directly to voicemail with an appropriate out-of-hours greeting.
Route out-of-hours voicemails to a shared email address so the first person in the next morning can action them.
Combine with your auto attendant to give callers the option to leave a voicemail or hear your opening hours.

Shared Departmental Voicemail Boxes

For departments like Sales or Support, set up a shared voicemail box that the whole team can access:

Assign a voicemail box to a hunt group or call queue rather than an individual extension.
Send notifications to the team's shared email address.
Any team member can listen to and action the messages.
This ensures voicemails are handled promptly even when individual team members are unavailable.

Need help configuring voicemail-to-email for your team? Get a quote for hosted VoIP and we'll set everything up as part of your installation.