Voicemail & greetings

Every call that isn’t answered can go to voicemail — to a grown-up, to a kid’s phone, and to people on other servers.

When a call goes to voicemail

• No answer: the call rings for 25 seconds (you can change it, see below), then the caller hears the greeting and a tone.
• Declined or busy: straight to the greeting.
• Quiet hours, not taking calls, or offline: straight to the greeting — nothing rings.

The caller talks after the tone and hangs up to send; a message can be up to two minutes. In the companion app that’s the Hang up & send button; on a phone it’s putting the handset down. A call that was never allowed (someone who isn’t on a kid’s phone’s list, or a kid’s phone during quiet hours calling out) doesn’t get voicemail either: the rules about who may call whom don’t change.

Where messages go

• To you: your own Voicemail tab in the companion (with a transcript when the server has speech-to-text), and “missed” on your own phone if you have one.
• To a kid’s phone: the guardians’ Voicemail tab, and the phone shows MISSED until a grown-up has listened.
• To someone at a Lounge phone: their own inbox — never the shared phone.
• Across servers: the message is delivered to the other person’s own server, through your connection.

Your greeting

Open Voicemail and tap Greeting at the top. There are three choices:

• Standard greeting — callers hear “Your name can’t take your call. Leave a message after the tone.”
• Record just your name (up to 3 seconds) — your own voice says your name inside the same sentence: “(your recording) can’t take your call. Leave a message after the tone.”
• Record a whole greeting (up to 30 seconds) — exactly what you say.

You can play it back, re-record it, or go back to the standard greeting at any time. The same card sets how long calls ring before voicemail (10 to 60 seconds).

People on other servers hear your greeting too, but only people you’re connected with: their server asks yours for it, and yours checks the connection first.

A kid’s phone’s greeting

Guardians set it on the phone’s Manage page, recording it in the app. A kids’ phone never records the child: the child can’t record its greeting on the phone, and a call the child makes that isn’t answered ends without a message (there’s nothing to leave). Messages left for the child’s phone by the people allowed to call it work as usual; guardians hear them in the app.

How long it’s kept, and transcripts

A space’s guardians choose how long its voicemail and call history are kept (30 days, 1 year or forever) and whether voicemail is transcribed: Settings → Privacy in this space. With transcription off, messages are never sent to speech-to-text. For people you’re connected with, your own choice comes first: open someone under Connections → History to see your calls and their messages to you, and to set how long you keep them.