Set up and manage MessageBank for home and business
MessageBank is your personal answering service. It's included at no cost with some of our plans and on nbn® and 4G fixed services.
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Getting started
If you’re looking for help with Telstra MessageBank, Message2Txt, or Apple Live Voicemail to receive voicemail messages on your mobile, learn about Voicemail on your mobile.
To access MessageBank from:
The phone it’s connected to:
Call 101 and you’ll be guided through recording your personal greeting and choosing a PIN. Follow the prompts to set up your mailbox.
Another number:
Call the service and press # while the greeting is playing, this will prompt you to enter your MessageBank PIN.
Your messages will play automatically once you're connected. After listening to your messages:
- Press 1 to replay the message
- Press 22 to call the person back - standard call charges apply
- Press 5 to delete the message and go to the next one.
To turn on Telstra Home Messages 101 or to retrieve messages from your home phone:
- Dial 101
- Follow the prompts.
You'll know you have new messages as soon as you pick up your phone because you'll hear a special 'interrupted' dial tone.
Manage MessageBank and Messages 101
To turn on MessageBank:
- Lift up your phone handset
- Dial *99#
- Hang up.
To turn off MessageBank:
- Lift up your phone handset
- Dial #99#
- Hang up.
You can change your PIN at any time. If you want the added security of PIN protection when calling MessageBank from your home phone you can also set that up using the following options:
- Call 101
- Press 9 for main menu
- Press 3 for set up menu
- Press 3 for the PIN change menu, then
- Press 1 to change the PIN or Press 2 for security settings, then
- Press 1 to turn off optional PIN.
Anytime you’re using MessageBank, you can press:
- 9 to return to Main Menu
- * to cancel and go back one menu level
- 8 for Help.
When you’re listening to your message, you can press:
- 1 to go back to the start of the message
- 2 to go back 8 seconds
- 3 to go forward 8 seconds
- 33 to fast forward to the end of the message
- 6 to skip to the next message
- 7 to pause a message while it’s playing
- 7 to resume a paused message.
Your unanswered calls are usually forwarded to MessageBank after 20 seconds, or about seven rings. However, you can change this to anything from 5 to 55 seconds.
To change the time before a call is forwarded:
- Lift up your phone handset
- Dial *99 followed by the number of seconds and then # e.g. *9955# to set to 55 seconds
- Hang up.
To make sure you don’t miss a message, you can get an SMS message sent to your mobile when someone sends you a message.
To turn on SMS Message Notifications:
- Dial 101
- Select 2 from the menu
- Follow the prompts.
Your phone will ring for 20 seconds before Telstra Home Messages 101 takes the call. You can change this delay to any interval, from 5 to 55 seconds.
To change the delay before your calls are answered:
- Dial 99
- Enter your desired time in seconds
- Press #.
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