I remember a time when my cell phone carrier would not only charge me for every minute I was on the phone but also nickel-and-dime me for every text message I sent! Thankfully, those days are long gone, but that doesn't mean carriers don't still try to squeeze extra money out of you for small features every month.
Visual Voicemail is a great example of this, and it typically costs between $3 and $5 per line, per month, to enjoy what seems like a fairly standard feature. If you're rocking a family plan, this feature might be costing you $30-40 per month, but if you're using Samsung Galaxy phones, you might be able to save that money and let your phone do all the work instead.
Article continues belowWhat is Direct Voicemail?
With Direct Voicemail, your phone will always answer incoming calls, but will use Galaxy AI to field and transcribe the call in realtime. Galaxy AI answers the phone with an automated voice that tells the caller you aren't available, then displays the transcribed call on your screen. You can also answer the call at any time during the process, giving this a distinct advantage over traditional voicemail.
Since the call and all the transcription happens on your phone, it never has to go to your carrier's voicemail system. Transcriptions are also only stored and processed locally, so the call goes to your phone and stays on your phone. Samsung also offers AI-powered background noise removal through Direct Voicemail, helping your voicemails sound clearer than you might be used to.
What are the downsides to Direct Voicemail?
While Direct Voicemail is a better version of your carrier's visual voicemail service in many ways, it has more limitations since it requires your phone to answer the call. If your phone is off or you have no network connection, for example, the call will still go to your carrier's voicemail system.
Direct Voicemail doesn't work while you're on another call since it has to answer the call in order to work. Video calls aren't supported, either, and there may be restrictions on Direct Voicemail while traveling to other countries. You'll also need to be mindful of storage space on your phone, although transcriptions barely take up any space, so this last point isn't a problem most people will ever encounter.
How to enable Samsung Direct Voicemail
Direct Voicemail is simple to set up, but many people might not know where to find the option. You could always just search for it in system settings, which is usually the best way to find anything you don't know the location of, but this is a quicker way to get to it:
1. Open the Phone app.
2. Tap the three-dot menu in the top right, then tap Settings.
3. Select Direct Voicemail from the list.
4. Tap the toggle switch to turn it on.
Now that the feature is enabled, you'll want to ensure that all the settings are correct so you can get the most out of it. By default, automatic transcription isn't enabled, so Direct Voicemail will still work but won't give you a realtime transcript as the person speaks. For me, that's a key component to the feature and makes it a lot less useful without. Here's how to enable that:
1. Open the Phone app.
2. Tap the three-dot menu in the top right, then tap Settings.
3. Select Direct Voicemail from the list.
4. Scroll down to and tap Transcript Assist.
5. Under the Call Recordings section of the next screen, turn on Auto transcribe recorded calls and Direct Voicemail.
How to use Direct Voicemail
By default, Direct Voicemail will automatically send calls to voicemail after ringing for 20 seconds. You can adjust that time to anything you want in Direct Voicemail settings (accessed in the steps above), or you can manually send a call to Direct Voicemail at any time. Here's how to do that.
1. When a call comes in, tap the More options button on the dialer or the pop-up call notification.
2. Select Direct Voicemail from the list to send the call to voicemail.
3. As the person talks, you'll see a live transcript appear on the screen.
4. To answer the call and interrupt Direct Voicemail, tap the Answer button.
How to find your Direct Voicemails
When someone leaves a Direct Voicemail, you can usually just tap the notification to open it, but there are plenty of times when I'll accidentally clear notifications and I imagine other people do this, too. Thankfully, Direct Voicemail is built into the Phone app, making it easy to find your voicemails.
Additionally, you can clean up background noise on voicemails if it's difficult to understand the written transcript, or if there's just a lot of background noise in the voicemail. Here's a quick tutorial:
1. Open the Phone app.
2. Tap the Recents button on the bottom navigation bar.
3. Any recent calls with a transcription will have a View recording and transcript button. Tap that.
4. You can read your transcription here or use the audio controls to listen to it.
5. Tap the Galaxy AI button in the bottom right to clean up the voicemail audio and eliminate background noise.
6. When you're done with the voicemail, tap the three-dot menu in the top right, then tap Delete transcription.
Now, you've mastered Direct Voicemail and can save some cash on your future phone bills by using it instead of your carrier's Visual Voicemail system. Direct Voicemail can't work if your phone is offline for some reason, in which case it'll route the voicemail back to your carrier's standard voicemail system, but it's unlikely that you'll have this problem most of the time.
Even with that limitation, I'd personally take the Direct Voicemail route just to save money every month. Visual Voicemail is great and all, but if I can get the feature for free most of the time, you'd better believe that's the route I'm going!
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra's Privacy Display and impressive OS outshine the pack, giving you plenty of reasons to choose Samsung's latest flagship.
