Change number of rings before voicemail consumer cellular

If your phone is sending calls to voicemail before you can get to it, you can actually adjust how long it rings before going to voicemail. Here's how to do it.

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It's a bit different for everyone, depending on your carrier. Sprint, it seems, does not offer this option, but the other major US carriers do. Here's how to change your ring delay for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

AT&T and T-Mobile

AT&T and T-Mobile both use the same method, which lets you change the number of rings right from your phone. To do it:

1. Dial *#61# from your phone. Tap Send.
2. You should see a new screen that displays a bunch of information about what's getting forwarded. You should see a line under "Voice Call Forwarding" that says "Forwards to +11234567890" (where 11234567890 is an eleven digit phone number, likely different from your phone number). Write down this number and tap Dismiss.
3. Now, dial **61*+11234567890*11*XX# and hit Send, where 11234567890 is the number that you found in step two and XX is the number of seconds you want to wait until voicemail picks up. You can set it in increments of 5, where 30 seconds is the maximum.

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After you hang up that call, you can have someone call your phone and see if it worked. On some phones, you can dial *#61# again and see how long it's delaying your calls, but our test phone (the iPhone) did not show this information.

Alternatively, you should be able to call AT&T or T-Mobile customer service and have them change it from their end, if you're uncomfortable doing it yourself.

Verizon

Verizon, unfortunately, does not offer this menu like AT&T and T-Mobile do. To change your ring delay on Verizon, you'll need to call customer service on your phone (by dialing *611) and asking them to help you out. The other caveat with Verizon, from what we could find in our research, is that your mileage could vary depending on where you are in the country. Sometimes, you'll be able to extend your delay all the way to 40 seconds, where other areas may have a smaller maximum, or not allow you to change it at all. Of course, it's a quick call to make, especially with our step-by-step guide to getting good customer service, so it's well worth a shot.

If you're outside the US, our friends at Lifehacker Australia have already compiled instructions for Telstra, Optus, and Vodaphone, and you can usually just Google the process for your carrier if you're with someone else. Furthermore, with any carrier, you can also just call customer service and get them to help you change it on their end, if you prefer. If you've done this before, let us know how it worked for you in the comments.

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Want to extend or decrease the ring time on your Android phone? While there's no option to change the number of rings in your settings, you can often use a self-service code to set an amount of time the call will ring before transferring. If you're not worried about the length of time and just want to hear shorter or longer tones, you can select a different ringtone in your Settings. Read on to learn how to change how long your Android rings before your calls are sent to voicemail.

1. 

   1

   Open the Phone app on your Android. It's the phone receiver icon typically near the bottom of your home screen. Although there is no way to specify the number of rings, you can specify the number of seconds it will take for the call to be transferred to your voicemail.

   • Self-service codes are not available for all phone providers. These steps will work for T-Mobile, and may also work for third-party services that use T-Mobiles network.[1]
   • If this method doesn't work for you, call your provider's customer service (you can usually just dial *611 from your Android to do this) and tell them how much time (between 5 and 30 seconds) you want calls to ring before transferring to voicemail.

2. 

   2

   Dial *#61# and press the Call button. After a few moments, your phone should display a screen full of information, including a phone number.

   • If this code gives you an error, your provider doesn't support this option. Most providers will still allow you to change the number of seconds it takes to forward

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3. 

   3

   Write down the phone number. This is the phone number for your provider's voicemail service. You will need to enter this phone number as part of a longer code in the new next step, so make sure you write it correctly.

   • If you're using T-Mobile, for example, the phone number will be 18056377243.

4. 

   4

   Dial the service code. The code should be entered in this format: **61*voicemailphonenumber**seconds#. Replace "voicemailphonenumber" with the phone number you wrote down in the previous step, and "seconds" with 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 to indicate how many seconds should pass before the call is sent to voicemail.

   • For example, if the phone number you wrote down is 18056377243 and you want incoming calls to ring for 15 seconds, you'd enter **61*18056377243**15#.
   • Although ringtone lengths vary, 10 seconds is usually about 3 or 4 rings, while 30 seconds is about 5 or 6 rings.

5. 

   5

   Tap the Call button. As long as you've entered the correct information (and that it's supported by your mobile service), you should see a confirmation message that says your call forwarding settings have been updated.

   • If you want to undo this setting in the future, dial the code again, but replace the number you entered with 30 (the default).

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1. 

   1

   Open your Android's Settings

   
   . To do this, swipe down from the top of the home screen, and then tap the gear icon at the top-right corner.
   • Although there's no setting on your Android that changes the number of rings specifically, you can select a longer or shorter ringtone so you hear more or less sound.
   • This will not change the length of time it takes for the call to transfer to voicemail, though—just the number of audible rings you'll hear.

2. 

   2

   Tap Sounds and vibration or Sound. The option you see will vary by provider.[2]

3. 

   3

   Tap Ringtone or Phone ringtone. One of these two options will be in the menu.

4. 

   4

   Tap a ringtone to hear a preview. Ringtone options and lengths vary by model. Some ringtones play a tune rather than a shorter sound, meaning that longer ringtones would result in fewer rings.

   • If you don't like any of the tones, check out How to Get a Free Ringtone to learn how to create and download tones for free.

5. 

   5

   Tap Save or the back button to save your changes. If you see a Save button, you'll need to tap that to save your changes.[3] Some models, including most Samsungs, do not have a save option because the change is automatic.

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Add New Question

• Question

  Can you make my ringtone to last longer?

  

  Vrinda Chugh

  Community Answer

  Click on the keypad to dial number and dial the number as **61**101**__. In the dash, write the number of seconds you want it to be increased to.

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About This Article

Article SummaryX

1. Open the Phone app.
2. Dial *#61#.
3. Write down the phone number.
4. Dial **61*voicemailphonenumber**seconds#.

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