How to use Voicemail Keeper
Voicemail Keeper
Find an iPhone backup on your Mac, open it with Voicemail Keeper, listen to the voicemails, and save each one as an .m4a file with the date of the call.
Free to read. You can explore the guide before buying the app.
On this page
Install Voicemail Keeper
Voicemail Keeper runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple silicon and Intel Macs. After buying, download the app zip from your Polar receipt, unzip it, and drag Voicemail Keeper to your Applications folder.
The app is signed and notarized by Apple. Confirm Open at the normal first-launch prompt.
The app works without a license key. The key in your receipt turns on automatic updates: enter it in Voicemail Keeper → License…. Once a day, the app checks for a new version, shows what’s new, and installs it with Install and Relaunch. Voicemail Keeper → Check for Updates… checks right away. A key works on 3 Macs. To move it to another Mac, choose License… → Deactivate This Mac first. Your receipt always has the latest version, too.
What has to be true
Voicemail Keeper reads the voicemails in an iPhone backup. It can help when:
- The backup was made on a Mac, or copied to one. The Finder keeps backups in
~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup. An iCloud backup doesn’t have the voicemails in a form the app can reach. - The carrier had Visual Voicemail, the list of voicemails you see in the Phone app. Without it, the voicemails stay with the carrier and never reach a backup.
- You know the backup’s password, if it has one.
Voicemail Keeper was tested on made-up backups laid out the way iPhone backups are publicly described, with and without a password, not on a real backup with real voicemails. Apple doesn’t document how it stores voicemails in a backup. When the app doesn’t understand a backup, it says so and changes nothing.
If the iPhone still works, there’s a free way: in the Phone app, tap Voicemail, tap a voicemail, then the share button, and save it to Files or send it to yourself.
Make a backup
If you have the iPhone but no backup, click I don’t have a backup yet on the first screen. The window shows the three steps:
- Connect your iPhone to this Mac with a cable. If it asks, tap Trust on the iPhone and enter its passcode.
- Open a Finder window and click your iPhone in the sidebar, under Locations.
- In the General tab, choose Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac, then click Back Up Now. Wait until the date of the latest backup shows today.
If you tick Encrypt local backup, the Finder asks for a password. Voicemail Keeper will ask for the same password. Write it down: nobody can recover it for you.
Click I Made a Backup to look for it.
Find the backup
The first screen says “Keep the voicemails on your iPhone”. There are two ways in.
Find Backups on This Mac looks in the Finder’s backups folder and lists every backup, newest first, with the phone’s name, its model, the iOS version and the day of the backup, like “iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 17.4.1, backed up August 3, 2025”. A backup with a password has a lock next to its name. Click Open next to the one you want.
Open a Backup Folder… (also File → Open a Backup Folder…, ⌘O) is for a backup that’s somewhere else: on an external drive, or copied from another Mac. Choose the backup’s own folder (it has files called Info.plist and Manifest.db inside it) and it opens straight away. Choose a folder that holds several backups and the window lists them.
If there’s no backup, the window says “There are no iPhone backups on this Mac”. If the folder you picked isn’t a backup, it says “This folder isn’t an iPhone backup”.
Full Disk Access
macOS keeps iPhone backups in a folder that can be protected. If macOS won’t let Voicemail Keeper look inside it, the window says “Voicemail Keeper needs Full Disk Access” and shows the steps:
- Click Open System Settings. It opens Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access.
- Turn on Voicemail Keeper in the list. If it isn’t there, click the + button and choose it in your Applications folder.
- Come back to the window. It checks every couple of seconds and moves on by itself when access is there.
You can skip this: copy the backup’s folder to your Desktop and use Open a Backup Folder…
Unlock a backup with a password
A backup with a password shows “The backup of Marco’s iPhone has a password”. Type it and click Unlock.
It’s the password chosen in the Finder when Encrypt local backup was turned on. It’s not the iPhone’s passcode, and not your Apple Account password.
Unlocking takes a few seconds, up to a minute on an older Mac: the window says “Unlocking the backup of Marco’s iPhone. This can take up to a minute.” A wrong password says “That password didn’t open the backup. Check the spelling and capital letters, and try again.” You can try as many times as you like.
The password is only used while the app is open. It’s never saved, and the field empties as soon as you click Unlock.
Listen to the voicemails
The window lists the voicemails, newest first. Each has:
| The caller | The number as the phone kept it, like +12125550142, or “No number” for a private or unknown caller |
| The date | The day and time of the call, like “March 9, 2024 at 6:42 PM” |
| The length | Minutes and seconds, like 0:23 |
| Deleted | It was in the iPhone’s Deleted Messages list. It’s still in the backup, so you can save it |
Click the play button to listen, and the stop button to stop. One plays at a time.
Two notes can show under a voicemail:
- “The recording isn’t in this backup”: the phone listed the voicemail, but its recording wasn’t backed up. It can’t be ticked or played.
- “This Mac can’t play this recording. Saving keeps the original file.”: the recording is in a format macOS can’t read. Saving keeps it exactly as it was.
If the backup has no voicemails at all, the window says “This backup has no voicemails”. That’s usually a carrier without Visual Voicemail, or a backup made before the voicemails arrived.
Save the voicemails
Every voicemail with a recording is ticked. Untick the ones you don’t want, or use Select None and tick just one. Tick Also keep the original recordings (.amr) to keep the iPhone’s own file next to each one.
Click the Save button, which counts what’s ticked, like Save 5 Voicemails…, and choose a folder. The window shows “Saving voicemail 3 of 5…”.
The app makes a new folder there, “Voicemails from Anna’s iPhone”, so nothing that’s already in the folder is touched. If you save again, the next one is “Voicemails from Anna’s iPhone 2”. Inside:
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
2024-03-09 18.42 +12125550142.m4a | A voicemail, as AAC audio that plays on any computer or phone. The name is the date, the time and the number. “Unknown caller” when there’s no number |
2024-03-09 18.42 +12125550142.amr | The original recording, when you asked to keep it, or when the Mac can’t read it |
voicemails.csv | One line per voicemail: file, original file, date, time, caller, callback number, seconds, whether it was deleted, and whether it was saved |
Each file’s created and modified dates are the date of the call, so the Finder sorts them the way they arrived. Times are in your Mac’s time zone.
What the report says
When it’s done, the window says what happened, like “5 voicemails are saved”:
- “4 voicemails are saved as sound files that play on any computer or phone. Each one was played back from the disk to check.”
- “1 recording is in a format this Mac can’t play, so it’s saved as the original .amr file, exactly as it was in the backup.”
- “The folder also has voicemails.csv, a list of every voicemail with its date and number, which opens in Numbers or Excel.”
A box called Not saved names each voicemail that wasn’t saved, and why, like “The recording isn’t in the backup.”
A voicemail is only counted as saved when its file is on the disk and was read back: an .m4a is played back to the end, an .amr is compared byte for byte with the backup.
Show in Finder opens the new folder. Back to the Voicemails goes back to the list, to save others. Start Over goes back to the first screen.
When something’s wrong
| The window says | What it means |
|---|---|
| ”This backup was made by a version of iOS this app doesn’t know yet” | Something in the backup isn’t where the app expects it. It stops instead of showing something wrong. Nothing was changed. An update may read it |
| ”This backup is too old for Voicemail Keeper” | It was made before iOS 10. Make a new backup of the iPhone if you still have it |
| ”Part of this backup can’t be read” | A file the app needs is missing or damaged. Make a new backup if the Finder can still see the iPhone |
| ”The voicemails couldn’t be saved” | The app couldn’t make its folder where you chose. Pick another place, like Documents |
Privacy
Voicemail Keeper reads the backup you choose and never changes, moves or deletes anything in it. To read it, the app copies the parts it needs into a temporary folder of its own, which it deletes when you go back, start over or quit.
Nothing leaves your Mac. Once a day the app sends its license key to updates.flaviocopes.com to check for a new version, and about once a week it checks the key with Polar, the shop. There are no accounts and no analytics.
Voicemail Keeper isn’t made by, affiliated with or endorsed by Apple. iPhone, iOS, Finder and macOS are Apple’s names, used here only to say what the app works with.
See Voicemail Keeper → · $20 including tax.