Unable to Forward Google Voice Messages to Linked Phone Number

By Zubair Alexander

- On August 1, 2019

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Are you unable to forward Google Voice messages to your linked phone number? This may happen even if you have been able to forward the messages in the past. For example, if you unlink the your cell phone number for some reason (perhaps you were running some tests) and then re-link the your cell phone number to Google Voice again, the forwarding will stop working. You won't be able to forward your Google Voice to your cell phone. The reason you experience this behavior has to do with a change that Google made to its Google Voice probably around December 2018. Because landlines, such as work or home phones, can't receive text messages, if you use the Web browser to add your phone number, Google assumes it's your work or home number (i.e. landline) and the option to forward text messages is disabled. Here's what your screen may look like. Notice the option to forward messages to linked number is grayed out.

SOLUTION

The solution to the problem is pretty simple. You need to let Google Voice know that your linked number is a mobile phone so it knows you can receive text messages. Just follow these steps to configure your Google Voice.

Log in to your Google account and go to Google Voice page (https://voice.google.com/).
Click the Main menu (three horizontal bars next to the phone icon). At the bottom of the menu select the Legacy Google Voice link.
On the top right hand side of the page click the Settings gear.
On the Phone tab, you'll notice that the current setting for your Cell Phone has been set to either Work or Home. Click the Edit button and change the setting to Mobile. Currently the graphic below shows Home.
Once you change the option to Mobile you will see the following new boxes: - Receive text messages on this phone - Notify me of new voicemails via text Select the option(s) you want. You also have the option to select Activate Google voicemail on this phone, which you may or may not want. Clicking the question mark displays the yellow help box which explains what this option does.
While you are on the Settings page, click first on the Voicemail & Text tab and then the Calls tab to see if there are any settings that you may want to change.
Switch back from the Legacy Google Voice interface to the new user interface (UI). The easiest way to get back to the new UI is to change the URL in the browser. For example, change the URL to https://voice.google.com.
Go back to the Settings in the new UI (https://voice.google.com) and you will notice that you now have control over the radio buttons. You can enable or disable the forwarding because your linked phone is now configured as a mobile phone.

For reference, here are the URLs for the Legacy Google Voice and the New Google Voice interface.

Feature Name	Legacy Google Voice	Feature Name	New Google Voice
Calls	https://voice.google.com/calls	Inbox	https://www.google.com/voice/#inbox
Messages	https://voice.google.com/messages	Texts	https://www.google.com/voice/#sms
Voicemail	https://voice.google.com/voicemail	Voicemails	https://www.google.com/voice/#voicemail
Spam	https://voice.google.com/spam	Spam	https://www.google.com/voice/#spam

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