Carriers like AT&T allow users to access visual voicemail. Visual voicemails are different from the regular ones in that they reside on the phone very much like text messages or emails – you don’t have to listen through all the unheard voicemails at once. Instead, you can surf through the voicemails and tap and listen to the one you need.
Now if your carrier allows visual voicemails, then here is a way to make it possible to forward these voicemails to your email account so that you may access it even without your iPhone in hand. The procedure sadly however needs you to jailbreak your iPhone. Jailbreaking is pretty simple these days with websites like JailbreakMe. If you have the latest version of the iOS, you can rather check out our tutorials on jailbreaking your iPhone. Do however remember that this procedure can void your warranty and could cause serious performance issues on your device and hence proceed at your own peril.
Update : It appears to be incompatible with iOS 4 as of now.
So, if you do end up jailbreaking your iPhone, all you will require to get started on voicemail email forwarding is to download the Voicemail Forwarder app from Cydia. With the app installed, visual voicemails will now carry a button against their listing that can be tapped to fire up an email with the current voicemail tagged as an attachment. You can access these files now from any internet connected computer.
The app costs $2.99 on the Cydia store. It is not clear if the app is compatible with the latest iPhone 4 though.