How to remove the voicemail icon when there are no voicemails on your Android

Has the Voicemail icon on your Android phone been showing a new voicemail notification when there is no new voicemail or any voicemail messages in your inbox? This can be a pretty annoying issue so here are some tips to get your voicemail notifications working correctly again.

Restart your phone

Sometimes we forget that our phones need to rest too. Keeping your phone on indefinitely can cause some funny issues, especially false notifications, so don’t forget to power your phone off every couple of days for a few minutes and let it rest. This will help keep your phone running smoothly.

Double check your voicemail

You have probably done this a hundred times already, but triple check after power cycling (powering off and on) your phone. If your phone is still showing a voicemail message and there is no voicemail waiting in your inbox then proceed to the next step.

Re-enable the voicemail notifications

Disabling and then re-enabling the “show notification” option under the voicemail app settings was a wonderful suggestion submitted by Milton (a site visitor) and I liked this suggestion so much that I felt I needed to add it to this guide as one of the first things to try when troubleshooting the voicemail notification on an Android cell phone.

To access the “Show notifications” setting in your voicemail application you need to access your cell phones Settings, find and open the Application manager (sometimes located under the “More” tab on many Android smartphones), make sure that all of the apps are showing (you may need to scroll over a few pages if the current apps displayed are under the list of “Downloaded” apps), once you see the list of ALL your apps scroll down and find the Voicemail application, tap to open it and then deselect the Show notifications option. You may get a warning letting you know that if you do this then you may miss important alerts for this app. Press Ok which will remove the checkmark and disable this setting; once it’s disabled press the option again to enable it.

Just make sure that “Show notifications” is check marked again as you’ll want to know when you get new voicemail messages.

Then go back to your home page and make sure that your voicemail notification is functioning properly. I suggest leaving a test voicemail and rebooting your cell phone if necessary.

If it solves the problem, enjoy, if not then proceed with the advice below.

Thanks again for the suggestion Milton! Note: Milton’s post can be read HERE.

Clean the App(s)

This might be a small hiccup on the Phone or Voicemail application itself. A quick cleaning can often be very effective at resolving this issue on your Android cell phone. This next suggestion will reset the settings and data on the application(s) and should not cause you to lose any voicemail messages that are stored on your wireless carrier’s server. Note: voicemails should be stored by your wireless service provider and you shouldn’t lose any important voicemails by clearing the phone or voicemail app data.

Start by Clearing your Phone Application

Access your phones Settings (you can do this by going to your phones Home page and then clicking the Menu Key), once your Settings are open find and open the Application manager, scroll to ALL, tap on Phone, and then tap Clear data.

Then check to make sure that your voicemail icon is displaying correctly. If it is then enjoy your smartphone and if this does help to resolve your issue and you would like to show your appreciation then don’t forget to press the Facebook Like and or Google + buttons below this article and feel free to also leave a friendly remark in the comment section at the bottom of this page.

Personal Note: I had forgotten to include this advice in my original post and I want to thank one of my readers by the name of Fred for reminding me of this trick so that I could add it to the article. His comment can be read by clicking HERE. Thanks Fred.

Clear the Voicemail Application

If for some reason clearing the data on your phone app didn’t help then try clearing the Voicemail applications data as well.

To clean your voicemail application the steps are very similar to the ones used when accessing the “Show notifications” feature and when clearing the data on your Phone application. Open your Settings > Application manager > ALL > Voicemail > and then this time tap on the Clear data option.

If your cell phone is still incorrectly displaying the voicemail notification then you can proceed with the additional suggestion(s) listed below.

Leave yourself a voicemail

Sounds a little strange I know, but call yourself and then leave yourself a voicemail. Once you check your voicemail, listen to it, and then erase it. After you have erased the voicemail you just left on your own machine (don’t use visual voicemail to do this) then check and see if your voicemail notification icon is still showing or if it is now working correctly.

Check your applications

If you have a voicemail application that you yourself downloaded onto the phone, try and force stop and/or uninstall that application, restart your phone, and see if your android starts working correctly again.

This also applies to any applications that you might have downloaded around the same time that you noticed this issue. If you downloaded a game, exercise, health, weather or other application and the notification started malfunctioning then chances are high that it could be that application causing problems. Try force stopping or uninstalling the app (I recommend you uninstall the application), rebooting, and see if it is working correctly again.

Factory Data Reset

You might have a software bug or even virus on your device and if you have tried the above suggestions and need a last resort then I strongly recommend you backup all of the information on your phone and then reset its information back to its factory defaults.

Don’t panic! It’s really not as hard as it sounds; the most important thing that you will need to do is to back up and save your information from your phone to another source so that you can put it all back on your phone after the reset.

If you would like a step by step guide on how to do this I suggest you read How to Backup and Reset an Android Phone.

Contact your wireless service provider

A factory data reset should fix this issue if it is a problem with the device itself, if for some mysterious reason your voicemail icon is still showing a message waiting and there is no message then contact your wireless carrier to have them do some troubleshooting on their end. If they don’t seem to have the solution right away, and you have done ALL the troubleshooting mentioned earlier in this article (especially the factory data reset) then ask them to remove the voicemail feature from your wireless account and then add it back on.

This will erase any saved voicemails that you have stored but your inbox will be like it’s brand new. You might have to setup your password again but your voicemail should be up and running and working correctly. Don’t forget to check it (if you can) while you still have your wireless provider on the phone. If they cannot get it to display properly then they will most likely give you some of the options available when you have problems fixing a phone.

Enjoy your working notifications and of course you’re working phone.

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89 thoughts on “How to remove the voicemail icon when there are no voicemails on your Android”

  1. press exit key
    Some voice mails have an exit option in the main menu when listening to it. Try pressing that instead of ending the call yourself.
    Works on iusacell (Mexico)

    1. Thank you

      Thank you for the additional tip Joost. Could certainly be helpful.

      Keep the tips and comments coming. I look forward to reading them.

  2. Change IUSACell Voicemail Greeting
    I am familiar with the process of changing voicemail greetings in english; can anyone give me the prompt/key breadcrumb trail i need to change my Mexico based IUSACell voice message…

    From after I key in *86, what do I enter to record new greeting and what do i enter to then save it if I am happy with it?

        1. This only worked a few times
          This only worked a few times, the icon came back on and the “clear data” option was not available because there was nothing to clear.

    1. Michelle Gentry

      Worked on new Samsung Galaxy s5
      This fix worked for my new Samsung Galaxy S5.

      This is the only article I found that was up to date on the issue. Thank you for posting! Very informative.

    2. TY so much, I have an old android…
      TY so much, I have an old android that use around the house, after transferring service to a new one. Drove me nuts having the Voicemail Notification there. ^^

    3. Thanks Fred! That worked
      Thanks Fred! That worked perfectly. I had upgraded to a new phone and couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the voicemail notification icon. Was driving me crazy…

    4. This did it, thanks.
      This worked for me too. I tried several suggestions including “clear data” in the voice mail app settings.

      Nothing helped until I opened the settings, apps, went to all, scrolled down to dialer (little blue phone icon), opened it and touched “clear data”. That fixed it and the problem never came back.

      BTW, my phone is a Droid MAXX and the problem started right after updating the visual voicemail app. I did the same update on my wife’s Droid MAXX and the problem never happened.

      1. Had this same problem.
        Had this same problem. Clearing data on the “Phone” application worked for me. I also had this problem after installing VZW Visual Voicemail. I think the problem is that I had 3 new messages when I installed the visual voicemail app, which confused the phone. Your wife must not have had any unread vm’s, thus not creating the problem for her. So, word of advice – make sure you have no new vm’s before installing the visual voicemail app!

    5. Clearing the phone…
      Clearing the phone seems to have finally taken my empty voicemail notification off my phone. It was driving me crazy. Thanks so much.

  3. voice mail
    I tried calling my own number and leaving a voice mail, calling and deleting that voice mail, made the voice mail indicator on the screen go away. So that option solved my problem

    1. Awesome

      I am glad that it worked for you John. Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment and letting others know what steps you were able to use to get the voice mail indicator on your cell phones screen to go away.

      Enjoy your voicemail my friend and thanks again.

  4. My Motorola Droid ultra had this problem…
    My Motorola Droid ultra had this problem. I went to the phone app under running applications and force stopped it. The icon went away and after opening the phone app everything works fine.

  5. voice mail notification
    Yay! Thanks! It worked!!! I finally got rid of the voice mail indicator on my screen. calling my phone, leaving a voice mail, then deleting the voice mail, removed the voice mail notification. It drove me crazy… every time I powered on my phone, it indicated I had a new voice mail.

    1. I am glad it helped

      I am happy to hear that this guide was able to help you remove that annoying voicemail notification from displaying on your cell phone and I want to thank you for taking the time to leave such a friendly comment and showing your appreciation. I am always grateful for positive feedback.

  6. This worked for me
    Application manager.. scroll to all.. scroll to voicemail…unclick “show notifications”.. then reclick.

    1. What a terrific suggestion.

      I suppose that would remove the voicemail notification icon from showing. Maybe even get it unstuck for good. Terrific suggestion Milton, I think I might just add it to the article.

      Just make sure to “re-click” and enable it though. If you leave it off you won’t know if you get any new voicemails.

      You also bring up a good point about the application manager as well; I have been meaning to update the article above and suggest that you can try clearing the Voicemail Cache and Voicemail Data which could also help to fix it.

      Thanks for contributing to the site Milton and providing the wonderful suggestion.

  7. Clearing the voicemail notification symbol from the notification
    All you have to do is go into the applications menu, select voicemail, then select force stop. I have had to clear mine on a few different occassions, and this works EVERY time. No clearing the vm or hard resets are required!

  8. OMG. I have chased this problem for months
    OMG. I have chased this problem for months and tried many of these solutions to no avail. Clearing the data in the phone app FINALLY got rid if that annoying icon. Can’t thank you enough!

  9. troubleshooter here!
    You have to go to your settings – then apps- running or all apps — look for the phone icon (IT COULD BE GREEN OR BLUE ) then force stop in the app ,,, ISSUE RESOLVED

  10. Fixed my problem as follows:
    Fixed my problem as follows:
    1) listen to the end of any given message
    2) operator will offer three (in my case) options:
    1.1 listen again press 1
    1.2 save message press 2
    1.3 delete message press 3
    3) choose 2 or 3 and the icon will disappear from the notification bar

  11. This is the only solution which worked…

    This is the only solution which worked on my Android Jellybean phone

    Resetting through apps information

    1. Swipe down the screen to show the running apps.
    2. Push and hold down the voicemail one (the tape icon).
    3. The App Info button will appear. Select this. It will open the Phone app (green phone icon).
    4. Select clear all data and ignore the warning message. It does not delete any recent calls, favorites, etc.; all it does is clear this icon.

    I’m sure this can be useful for others for whom the other solutions published haven’t worked.

    Peter

    1. In fact, it is!
      I was about to comment the exact same thing since my phone language is set to Spanish and I didn’t find the voicemail app in the apps manager, I just swiped the notification bar and held the icon and then tapped the app info, forced it to stop and cleared the cache and voilá! problem solved! Thanks to the author for such a useful article! 🙂

  12. Thank you for your contributions guys.

    Thank you Peter, Anon, Alexander, Shawna, and everyone else who has taken the time to post how they were able to correct the voicemail icon from showing incorrectly on their smartphone.

    Keep up the good work guys.

  13. I’d disabled voicemail…
    I’d disabled voicemail, having never used nor checked it for years, but still had a voicemail notification on my phone for a month. Restarting my phone hadn’t fixed it, and neither had removing and reinserting my SIM card. After reading this article I went looking for the option to turn off the notifications. I’ve got a Samsung Galaxy S4, and found that the notification was coming from the “Phone” app but I wasn’t able to disable notifications from it. However, when I pressed the “Force Stop” button the notification disappeared. The phone still seems to work just fine, so I’m hoping the notification doesn’t come back.

  14. Roberto Hernandez

    How to remove the voice icon
    I had this annoying icon for a few weeks, without having any voice mail. I tried many things including factory resetting my Note 2. Nothing worked. Then I decided to call me myself and left a message. Then I followed the normal procedures and in seconds, that stupid little icon was gone. Hope this will help somebody.

    1. Thank you very much
      Thank you very much because nothing was working to remove it but your comment helped me to finally fix that bug

      1. Leaving a message on your own voicemail

        Hello Marcos,

        I am happy to hear that leaving a message on your own voicemail worked for you as well.

        Out of curiosity… Leaving yourself a voicemail is the fifth suggestion listed in the article above and has been part of this guide since it was first written.

        Marcos (and Roberto) did you end up having to do something different then what was described in the article above or was that section of the article accidently skipped? I am just curious if I need to go back and edit the article in order to make the suggestion easier to follow or if I need to add anything to make the suggestion more effective when fixing the voicemail icon on a cell phone.

        I’m just wondering. Thanks for taking the time to post a comment and I hope to hear back from you soon should you have any suggestions on how the article above can be improved. Otherwise enjoy your properly working voicemail notification.

  15. Galaxy S5 voice mail icon
    I had this same problem. The voice mail icon would not go away. I called myself from another phone, left a voice mail, then accessed it from my phone. I deleted the voice mail, then used the prompt to disconnect instead of just hanging up. The icon disappeared.

  16. Amazing!
    Amazing! I have had my voicemail icon on the top of my screen for weeks and it was driving me crazy! I cleared the data on my phone “app” and it is gone. Thanks!

  17. Remove voicemail icon

    When I first started by new S5 Active, it showed an icon that said I had a voicemail. The icon was misleading and for some reason I could not get rid of it until I did the following. I called my phone and left a voicemail then I listened to the voicemail and then deleted the voicemail. The icon is now working properly and only showing when there is truly a voicemail waiting.

  18. Swipe the notificacion bar and long press into the vm icon
    It will show app info from where you’ll be able to force it to stop and clear the cache. That’s what I have done since my S4 didn’t show me any voice mail app into the app manager (maybe because it’s in Spanish) The thing is that forcing the phone app to stop and clearing the cache solved the problem without affecting recent calls list or whatsoever and saved a lot of time scrolling for the app just by tapping and holding the icon directly from the notifications bar 🙂 Thanks for this wonderful article and the time and the effort the author put into it.

  19. I just read elsewhere…
    I just read elsewhere the problem arises when you call your voice mail, delete the message and hang up BEFORE the notification is cleared from the notification bar.

    If you delete the vm, then hang up immediately, the phone doesn’t receive the signal that you have no voicemail. Then when you call back to try and clear it, there isn’t a voicemail to delete, so it can’t send the signal to dismiss the notification.

    That’s why so many people solve the problem by calling themselves to leave a new message, and then deleting it 🙂

  20. Call your voice mail
    Call your voice mail and from the menu there should be a “settings” option. Change the “message waiting indicator” to off. You can do this if you have visual voice mail and don’t want 2 different voice mail alerts.

  21. Clearing the phone data worked

    Clearing the phone data worked. I tried every suggestion to that point – THANKS

  22. What voicemail ‘app’?
    Everyone seems to have this in their ‘application manager’. I don’t have that manager either.

    I have ‘Apps’, in the settings page. Under Apps I have the usual plethora of cryptic and obvious apps and utilities. There is no voicemail app among those. Nothing in the V’s by that name. There is Phone and Phone/Messaging service. You’re going to say it’s the latter, right. Nope, just blank/dead buttons and it looks like it’s never been used.

    To cut a long story short, I shut down the ‘Phone’ app, ignoring the warning and the icon disappeared. Then phoned. My phone is now working and all the data is still there. The icon is still gone, but it’s my suspicion that it really resides on the phone company’s servers, not here, I see no reason why it can’t return.

    We’ll see.

  23. On the GS4 lollipop…
    On the GS4 lollipop, it is one of the “Phone” apps. Force stop all of them until the notification disappears.

  24. Voicemail icon was stuck on my phone
    I followed your suggestions. Forced stopped the voicemail removed the notification check mark. Added it back uninstalled the app to factory settings. Turned the phone off turned it back on. Called the voicemail and left a message. Called the voicemail. Listened to it and pressed 7 . The icon went away. Thank you so much for my android assistance.

  25. This was very helpful
    This description was great – even the android forums didn’t have a good answer on how to fix this issue which was mainly just very annoying.

  26. Thank You!! Clear Data worked a treat
    After moving from one provider to another, this annoying icon appeared. I looked high and low even asking many people how I can remove this annoying thing. Finally I came across this. I’m now free from seeing this icon telling me I have a new message and I don’t. Can’t thank you enough.

  27. Clear Cache
    If you’re like me and have Sprint and a Galaxy S4, you may have voicemails in the voicemail app that you don’t want to get rid of. I recommend choosing to clear cache before choosing to clear data. It worked for me, and I still got to keep the messages that I have stored on my phone.

  28. Solution
    The fix I always do as this occasionally happens to me is:
    1. Call you phone from another phone
    2. Leave a voicemail
    3. Access your voicemail from your cell phone
    4. Delete the message, and the notification should now go away

  29. What worked for me…
    What worked for me on my Galaxy S6 Edge was hitting the phone icon on the main screen. Tapping the Log button. Then selecting the “more” option on the upper right hand corner. I then selected “delete” and ticked the box next to the voice mail. Once I deleted it, the icon disappeared from the home screen.

  30. I was able to push and hold the notification
    I was able to push and hold the notification. From there it brings up a button click on that and you can force stop it… Hope it works! Its been driving me nuts! Gone into Verizon 2x!

  31. Clear cache
    I solved this by going to the Applications Manager (all apps) and finding the Phone app. There were 3 with similar icons. I selected the Clear Cache option for each one.

  32. Clearing the phone app data worked

    Clearing the phone app data worked. Thank you! On the Galaxy S6, you need to go to settings>applications>application manager>swipe to ALL>phone (there might be more than one)>clear data in all phone apps.

  33. Stubborn voicemail icon and notification!
    After searching the internet for the answer practically all day, clearing my phone data WORKED!!!! (and no it didn’t delete my contacts!) THANK YOU!!!!!

  34. Voicemail notification won’t go away! It’s been years!
    I have 8 new voicemail notifications which never go away. I have tried everything here. I can get rid of it temporarily by long pressing on it and clearing the data but it comes right back after I reboot the phone. So irritating. S5 on AT&T and the same thing previously on my S3 on AT&T. It’s been years! Nothing works… My family’s LG’s and HTC’s never ever had anything like this…

    1. Fixing your voicemail notifications

      Hi Jack,

      From your description it sounds like it’s probably a problem on your service providers (AT&T’s) side of things. Especially if rebooting the phone causes the unwanted voice mails to come back as the phone is checking the server to see if any voicemails are available as it starts up, the server tells the phone that there are voicemails (even though their isn’t) and they show back up on the phone. This would also explain why they existed on your Samsung Galaxy S3 and now still exist on your Samsung Galaxy S5. You may have changed phones but you still have the same account and features (like the voicemail feature) through your service provider. So those stubborn voice mails likely followed you through your account through your service provider.

      You might have to talk to a few representatives before you get to one that can assist you properly but I suggest calling your service provider (AT&T) because it sounds like the problem resides on their end and not yours, that’s why you can’t seem to fix it. They will have to fix it for you, which in itself can present its own set of challenges.

      You can refer back to the end of the article above and the “Contact your wireless service provider” section for some more advice on this topic but you may have to have the voicemail feature removed from your current account and then re-added to your account in order to start fresh again. I have a feeling that this, if done properly, should help to fix your specific voicemail glitch, which as it happens is one of the hardest and most stubborn type of voicemail glitches to try and resolve.

  35. This was driving me nuts
    This was driving me nuts on my Nexus 6p with Google Voice integration. In my case it turned out to be VoiceMails stuck in the Sprint voicemail app. I had to Disable Google Voice integration, go into the Sprint VM app and clear the VM’s there, then re-enable Google Voice integration. That seems to have cleared them out.

  36. Quickest way
    Have someone call and leave a message. When you call voicemail and clear the new message the notification will go away.

  37. Thank you
    Thank you. The factory reset didn’t work, however calling myself, leaving a voicemail, listening to it and them deleting it, removed the icon! It was driving me mad!

  38. Can’t uncheck the “show notifications” box
    The app manager will not let me uncheck the notifications box for my voice mail app. I’ve tried clearing cache+clearing data numerous times as i’d seen this fix before. But it only solves the problem until I get a new message. I have to do this after every voicemail check in order to get appropriate notifications. Huge pain. … grrr

  39. Force Stopping Phone App WORKS
    Going to settings then applications, then force stopping the phone app works a treat. Then just open the phone app again and the irritating notification for a VM has gone!

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