How to Deactivate Google Voice Voicemail and Return to iPhone Visual Voice Mail

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Have you ever set up Google Voice with your iPhone?  Well if you ever want to stop Google Voice from being your iPhone’s default voicemail then follow these simple steps:

  1. To deactivate forwarding and return to regular visual voicemail enter ##61# and hit call.
  2. If you are on AT&T in the United States and you not only want to deactivate regular voicemail but your busy voicemail as well, enter ##004# and hit call.

In case you are asking why?, well lets just say Google Voice is not all that it is cracked up to be.

UPDATE 2/13/12: This article gets quite a few hits. I wrote this back in 2010 before the iPhone made its way to Verizon and Sprint. I am not sure how to remove Google Voice from those networks as I do not own an iPhone on the networks. Sorry if this does not help you in your quest.

  • Robert

    You need to send this post to AT&T Wireless and the Apple iPhone support team. I spent two hours with AT&T and an Apple Tech rep and they both didn’t realize that Google hijacks your visual voice mail on the iPhone. Since it didn’t read Googles terms of service for Google Voice (who really does) you ind out by default once your Google voice account is activate. I find your post and I’m back to visual vmail on the iphone in less than a minute. Thanks

  • Robert

    You need to send this post to AT&T Wireless and the Apple iPhone support team. I spent two hours with AT&T and an Apple Tech rep and they both didn’t realize that Google hijacks your visual voice mail on the iPhone. Since it didn’t read Googles terms of service for Google Voice (who really does) you ind out by default once your Google voice account is activate. I find your post and I’m back to visual vmail on the iphone in less than a minute. Thanks

  • tea

    Thank you sooooo much for this tip. It works and google voice really sucks for making this so complicated.

  • Jdshort

    Thank you! Google Voice jacked my voicemail for two days before I found your blog. Lots of pissed off customers are happy to actually reach me now. Great work.

  • http://twitter.com/JT_Ray JT Ray

    Thanks. I spent a long time on Google and with AT&T to find this fix. I was glad I could help.

  • Ellis Benus

    Not all it’s cracked up to be?!

    How do you figure?

  • Kanukenya

    Thanks much guys i just deactivated mine, it was just pain going through all this google voice crap.

  • Geminilocz55

    thank so much!! i hate google voice..took me hours for att and apple to deactivate and found this code and it worked.. thanks!!!

  • Iamanoufan

    Thank you very much. I have been trying to get google voice off my phone for a couple of weeks.

  • http://twitter.com/JT_Ray JT Ray

    Glad I could help. My search to uncover this issue was quite the adventure.

  • Gbrazile

    thank you, it worked.

  • Guest

    You are a life SAVER!!! Thank you so much!

  • Omar Deleon312

    Thank you so much. Very short and to the point!

  • Rjwconsultant

    I have the iphone and it still comes up as an error when I do ##61#

  • Rjwconsultant

    ##61## is there something else I need to do…

  • http://twitter.com/JT_Ray JT Ray

    Did you also input ##004# ?

  • Jerry Gao

    very useful. followed ##61#, and deactivated Google Voicemail forwarding.
    Thanks. 

  • GARY GNU

    you da man JT. i misunderstood when i activated this feature. nothing like friends on the internet. thought it meant something different. google voice is like an aggressive russia secretary that sets new standards in the office (that one must abide by, or else)……

  • Mike needs Help

    how about for iphone 4 on verizon?

  • Jonny

    Thanks JT..

  • http://www.peterwknox.com peterwknox

    Thank you so much for this. It’s saved my sanity. I was stuck with GV for a year until now. I’m FREEEEEE at last!

  • Nazaka145

    Thanks a lot!, many many Thanks

  • SG

    when i try ##61# i get “setting erasure succeeded Fax Call Forwarding when unanswered”  and my only option on the iphone is Dismiss, which seems not to do anything.
    Please HELP.  I HATE GOOGLE VOICE

  • Ossito_1

    man, you saved me, been stuck for about a week , lol, thanks

  • Claudia

    omg thank you sooo much!! There was going to be violence!

  • Veronicat1981

    Hello JT, thank you so much for your help… in my case it´s a little more complicated than that and I wanted to know if you can help me.
    I have a GV phone number for my business and a personal phone number with at&t. I forwarded the GV to my iPhone. I would like to have two different voicemails one for my business, one for my personal calls, but if I activate GV voicemail all my calls go there.
    Hope you can help, thank you! :-)

  • Krdrco

    Do you hit the Dismiss button after you enter teh ##61# call

  • SDL

    how would I do this with a sprint iphone?

  • http://twitter.com/TheRealJTRay JT Ray

    I am not sure how to complete the process on the Verizon or Sprint

  • Sharhondaray

    Thank you and I only had it 2 days—-sucks it even locked my emails

  • Km23

    thank you!!! I am FREEEE Google Voice SUCKS!!!!

  • Renarde

    Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! Having never *activated* Google Voice voicemail, I was very annoyed when I couldn’t “deactivate” it. And this information is not in *any* of the Google forums I could find. It’s such a relief to have my iPhone visual voicemail back!!!!!

  • Rem61107

    On the Droid3 if you use *73 it will disable google voice. Got it directly from Verizon Wireless.

  • Doug Van Diepen

    On my IPhone4 with Verizon, the *73 Send worked great.

  • Manos

    Thank you!! Another satisfied customer!

  • Lourdes_william86

    useful information…got mad without knowing it for almost a day

  • Anwatts88

     So what exactly does the ##04 do..?

  • Joanna

    thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.  I was insane.  Over a year i’ve suffered with this.  Missing calls all the time as my phone rang only a couple times.  Now, I am freeeeee.  You rock!

  • Jalenanderson13

    Where the dismiss at

  • Boiseboy

    this is great help…i spent a long time with att customer service to fix the problem…and still they could not do it…thanks a lot…btw nice picture of capitol blvd there…