How to change how long your iPhone rings before calls go to voicemail

[macgirl]

How to change how long your iPhone rings before calls go to voicemail

I had changed this setting on a previous phone years ago and wanted to make sure I had the longest setting possible on my iPhone since it sometimes takes me a while to dig it out of my purse. I can’t take full credit for these instructions, having found them on an old Cingular users forum, but I have updated them to be specific for the iPhone on AT&T.

You can choose between 5 and 30 seconds in increments of 5 (5, 10, 15, etc.). I haven’t tried anything longer than 30 seconds. I have confirmed that this works by setting it for 30 seconds, then 10 seconds, then 30 seconds, and testing it each time by calling my iPhone and timing how long it rings before going to voicemail.

First, you’ll need to know your voicemail access number. The easiest way to get this is to dial *#61# and then press Call on your iPhone’s keypad. The first block of text you’ll see on the screen that comes up will be:

Setting Interrogation Succeeded
Voice Call Forwarding
When Unanswered
Forwards to +1XXXXXXXXXX Enabled

Where +1XXXXXXXXXX is shown as an actual number - write this number down because you’ll need it in the next steps. You can ignore the rest of the text that is shown for the purposes of this exercise.

To change how long your iPhone rings, dial *61*+1XXXXXXXXXX*11*tt# where +1XXXXXXXXXX is the number you wrote down from the first step above and tt is the length of time in seconds for which you want your iPhone to ring. To get the + sign to show up, hold down the 0 key for a couple of seconds and release it when it turns into the + sign in the readout above. Then press Call.

You may be able to go longer than 30 seconds - I have not tested it to see if it even works, but it may cause some of your plan minutes to be used even if you don’t answer the phone, so beware.

To give you an example, I dialed *61*+12537094017*11*30# then pressed Call to change my iPhone ring to last 30 seconds. After this, assuming you’ve entered everything correctly, you’ll see the following message:

Setting Activation Succeeded
Voice Call Forwarding
When Unanswered

That’s it! Enjoy!

[jpm]

Or you could just call customer service and ask for extending ringing...boom 30 seconds before going to voicemail. That's what I did a couple years ago.

[macgirl]

Or you could just call customer service and ask for extending ringing...boom 30 seconds before going to voicemail. That's what I did a couple years ago.

you could, but that is so much less fun than doing it yourself.

plus, the last time i tried to have customer service try to do it for me, it took the rep several minutes to figure out how to do it - much more efficient to do it myself...

[patrickj]

Cool tip - and like your site also, just RSS subscribed ...

[Youngbinks]

Ah very cool find. I've recently taken a dive into the ringback tones so now I can subject the people calling me to even MORE music of my choosing.

[jpmihalk]

Good stuff!

[meiphones_brill]

Isn't macgirl Brilliant! If I was married to macgirl I could talk techy stuff over dinner, and I bet I'd not even get frowned at when I bring ANOTHER! - WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ANOTHER OLD COMPUTER! - new addition to my computer museum.

I bet she'd be happy when I bought her a new iPod, and we'd have lots of computers everywhere and an iPod in every car. And we could get on the plane and fly over to the US every gear to go to MacWorld and maybe do some shopping while we were there.

aaaaaah.

[macgirl]

Cool tip - and like your site also, just RSS subscribed ...

thanks! glad you like it!

now if only i could make a living off of writing full-time and quit my day job...

[macgirl]

Ah very cool find. I've recently taken a dive into the ringback tones so now I can subject the people calling me to even MORE music of my choosing.

thanks! how much does at&t charge for ringback tones? what are you going to pick?

[kokogirl]

Isn't macgirl Brilliant! If I was married to macgirl I could talk techy stuff over dinner, and I bet I'd not even get frowned at when I bring ANOTHER! - WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ANOTHER OLD COMPUTER! - new addition to my computer museum.

I bet she'd be happy when I bought her a new iPod, and we'd have lots of computers everywhere and an iPod in every car. And we could get on the plane and fly over to the US every gear to go to MacWorld and maybe do some shopping while we were there.

aaaaaah.

You are sooo funny. I love your posts. I like to read to myself imagining your accent.