You're sitting in a meeting, your phone vibrates, and you decline the call. Three seconds later, your phone buzzes again. It’s a notification for a new voicemail. You check it, and it’s just fifteen seconds of heavy breathing or a robot telling you your car insurance is about to expire. It’s annoying. Most people think there is a giant "Off" switch buried in the iOS settings to how to cancel the voicemail in iphone, but the reality is way more complicated than that.
Apple doesn't actually control your voicemail. Your carrier does. Whether you're on AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or some niche MVNO like Mint Mobile, the voicemail "box" lives on their servers, not your sleek titanium device.
Stopping those messages requires a bit of digital surgery.
The Secret Codes That Actually Work
Back in the day, engineers built "MMI codes" into the cellular network. These are those weird strings of asterisks and hashtags you might have seen people type into their dialer. They still work. If you want to stop calls from forwarding to your voicemail, you have to talk to the network directly.
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Open your Phone app. Tap Keypad. Type ##002# and hit the call button.
This is a universal command. It’s supposed to disable all call forwarding. In theory, when someone calls and you don't pick up, the line should just keep ringing or give a busy signal instead of jumping into your mailbox. But here’s the kicker: some carriers have blocked this code because they want you to use their paid "Visual Voicemail" services.
If that didn't work, you've gotta get specific. For many GSM networks (like T-Mobile), you can try #61# to stop forwarding when you don't answer, #62# for when you're unreachable, and #67# for when the line is busy. It’s a bit of a gamble, honestly. Sometimes the screen just flashes "Setting Erasure Failed," and you're back to square one.
Dealing With Your Carrier Directly
Since your iPhone is basically just a window into your carrier's soul, sometimes you have to ask the soul-owner to pull the plug. You can’t just "cancel" it in the settings app under the green phone icon. That menu is surprisingly empty when it comes to actual server-side controls.
Most people hate calling customer service. I get it. But for Verizon users, the easiest way is often through the My Verizon app. You go into your plan add-ons and look for "Block Voice Mail." It’s often listed as a free feature. T-Mobile users can sometimes do this by dialing #621# from their handset, which is a shortcut to their internal "deactivate" command.
If you’re on a prepaid plan, things get weird. Boost or Cricket might not even give you the option to turn it off. They see voicemail as a core part of the "connection" experience. In those cases, the only real way to how to cancel the voicemail in iphone is to let the mailbox get completely full.
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Seriously. Don't delete your messages. Let the robots fill up your 20-message limit. Eventually, when someone calls, they’ll hear a lovely recording saying "This mailbox is full and cannot accept new messages." It’s the lazy person’s way of canceling voicemail, and it works 100% of the time.
Why Visual Voicemail Makes This Harder
Apple introduced Visual Voicemail with the original iPhone in 2007. It changed everything. Instead of calling a number and pressing "7" to delete, you saw a list. But this integration means your iPhone is constantly "talking" to the carrier's voicemail server.
Even if you stop the notifications, the "system" is still active.
Some people try to bypass this by using a third-party app like YouMail or NoMoRobo. These apps hijack your call forwarding. Instead of the call going to the carrier's crappy box, it goes to their app, which can then "hang up" on the caller or play a "number disconnected" tone. This is the nuclear option. It’s technically "canceling" your iPhone's built-in voicemail by replacing it with a smarter one.
The Problem With Disabling LTE/5G Data
I've seen some "tech experts" online claim that if you turn off cellular data, the voicemail stops. That’s just wrong. Voicemail happens on the carrier's side. Your phone could be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and people could still leave you a voicemail. Turning off your data just means you won't get the notification that you have a voicemail, which is actually worse because then you have a hidden pile of messages you don't know about.
What About "Silence Unknown Callers"?
There’s a setting in iOS under Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers. A lot of users toggle this on thinking it will stop voicemails.
Nope.
All this does is send anyone not in your contacts straight to—you guessed it—voicemail. It makes the problem more frequent because you aren't even given the chance to answer the call and tell the person to stop calling. If you really want to how to cancel the voicemail in iphone, this setting is actually your enemy.
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How to Check If It’s Actually Off
Once you've run your MMI codes or chatted with a representative named "Steve" from a call center, you need to verify it. Borrow a friend’s phone. Call yourself. Do not answer.
If it rings for 30 seconds and then disconnects, you’ve won. If it still goes to a greeting, the carrier's "Conditional Call Forwarding" is still active. This is the "sticky" part of the software. Carriers often have a "retry" logic where if a deactivation code fails, it just defaults back to "On" for your "convenience."
The International Roaming Nightmare
One specific reason to kill your voicemail is traveling. If you're in Europe with a US-based SIM, and someone calls you, your phone "pings" the local tower. If you don't answer, the call travels all the way back to the US to hit your voicemail. Some carriers will charge you an international minute for that "trip."
To avoid this, you specifically need to disable "Conditional Call Forwarding." The ##002# code is your best friend at the airport. Use it right before you put the plane in Airplane Mode. It stops the loop.
Moving Toward a Voicemail-Free Life
Honestly, we are moving toward a world where voice calls are just for doctors and scammers. Most of our communication is asynchronous anyway. If you're committed to the "no voicemail" lifestyle, you should also update your outgoing greeting.
Just say: "I don't check this. Text me or email me."
Then, use the full-mailbox trick mentioned earlier. It’s the most foolproof method. No matter how many times Apple updates iOS or carriers change their MMI codes, a full bucket can’t hold more water.
Actionable Steps for Today
- Try the Master Code First: Dial
##002#and call. If it says "Success," you're likely done. - The Manual Block: Check your carrier's official app (MyAT&T, My Verizon, etc.) for a "Voicemail" or "Add-ons" section to remove the feature.
- The Customer Service Route: Call 611 from your iPhone. Ask the representative to "Remove the Voicemail Provisioning" from your line. Use those exact words so they don't just try to reset your password.
- The "Full Box" Strategy: If all else fails, keep your old voicemails until the capacity is reached.
- The Forwarding Hack: If you really hate the carrier box, forward your calls to a dead number (like an old Google Voice number that isn't set up) using
*61*1234567890#.
Following these steps ensures you won't have to deal with that red dot on your Phone app ever again. It takes a little effort because the system is designed to keep you "connected," but taking back control of your phone's reachability is worth the ten minutes of menu-diving.