google voice is one of the most popular voip (voice over ip) services in use today. This is mainly because the service is free, unless you intend to transfer your real cell phone number to the service.
The service is free if you sign up for a unique phone number provided by Google, and you can forward any calls or messages to this number to your own cell phone. Unfortunately, there are times when Google Voice may not work. this could be not receiving new call notifications, not receiving new calls or messages at all, or not being able to access your account at all.
In this article you will learn the seven most common solutions for when google voice is not working.
1. sign in to the correct google account
If you can’t even log in to your google voice account to retrieve your messages, there could be a number of reasons.
The first thing to check is that you’re signed in to the correct google account. This should be the account you used when you initially set up Google Voice.
From the main google search page, select your profile picture and make sure you’re signed in to that google account.
if not, select sign out and then sign back into google with the correct google account.
2. check your internet connection
this should go without saying, but if you can’t access the internet, you won’t be able to access google voice.
You may see an obvious error in your browser that you are not connected to the internet. or you may see an error in google voice that a connection is no longer available.
There are a few ways to verify this. Please follow the links below to troubleshoot your specific internet connection issue.
- internet connected but still not working
- your internet connection only works intermittently
- cannot connect to your wifi network with windows 10</li
- can’t connect to your wi-fi network with android
- verify that your home wi-fi network is really working
- troubleshoot slow internet connection
If you have confirmed that your internet connection is fine, or have repaired your connection but google voice is still not working, then you are ready to continue with the following troubleshooting steps.
3. install the latest version of google voice
If you access google voice through your browser, you don’t have to worry about the version of google voice. however, you must ensure that you are using the most recent version of google chrome, edge or firefox.
You can access and update the browser version on the browser information page in almost all browsers. usually you just need to access this page and the browser will refresh itself.
If you are accessing Google Voice on your mobile device, please visit the Google Play or Apple App Store to make sure your app is up to date.
4. make sure you have correctly configured google voice
With Google Voice, you can get a free phone number and then link incoming calls to that number to your smartphone.
If you’ve already done this once and then forgot, there are a few things that can go wrong.
- You bought a new phone and installed google voice without forwarding calls to the new number.
- You changed your phone number on your current phone and didn’t update google voice.
- Your google voice account was closed or deleted.
- You set up a second google voice account and tried to forward calls from that second number to the same phone.
verify your registered phone number in google voice and then confirm that the device you have registered is the mobile device you currently own.
You can do this by selecting the gear icon settings in the upper right corner of google voice. then select account from the menu on the left.
You will see your google voice phone number in the google voice number section. You will see your registered mobile device in the my devices section.
note: if you are using voice for google workspace for your business communications with multiple users, the registered administrator must correctly assign users a “license” to use the google voice account and configure their specific phone number. If you’re a member of a workspace, contact your admin and make sure your Google Voice account has been activated and has been assigned a correct phone number.
5. check do not disturb settings
Even if you have successfully configured Google Voice to forward calls to your phone or web browser, you may not receive calls. there are some problems that can cause this. namely, the do not disturb settings and the call answer settings.
Access the google voice settings menu and select do not disturb from the left navigation menu. make sure the do not disturb switch on the right is not enabled.
if this option is enabled, you will not receive notifications of incoming calls from google voice.
6. check call answering settings
another setting that can cause google voice not to work with incoming calls is the call answer setting. you will find it in the google voice settings menu. select calls in the left navigation panel.
Look for the incoming calls section on the right and the my devices section below. For each device you want to receive Google voice calls on, make sure the toggle switches to the right are enabled.
7. have you used google voice lately?
some user reports say that their google voice service just stopped working after they couldn’t open google voice and use it directly for a long time.
The first thing you should try is to log back into your google voice account and check your recent messages. just this activity alone can reactivate your account and fix issues with not receiving notifications.
however, a more serious concern may be that your access to google voice has been revoked entirely. this can happen for a couple of reasons.
- You haven’t made a call, received a text, or bothered to listen to your google voice messages in over six months.
- ported your old cell phone number to use for google voice, but didn’t pay the $20 fee for this option.
In either of these cases, you will not only lose access to the google voice service, but you will also lose your google voice phone number entirely.
but don’t worry; you still have 45 more days to contact google support and retrieve your google voice phone number.