I noticed this weekend that a lot of my friends don’t have their voicemail set up. After thinking about it, I wasn’t sure if I had one with a custom greeting, but setting up voicemail on an iPhone is actually not that hard.

First, navigate to your home screen and tap the phone button. It’s a green button with a phone on it that takes you to a keypad, with additional tabs for your recent calls, contacts, and favorites. At the bottom right, you’ll see a label for Voicemail. Tap that. (It’s usually in the bottom row of apps on your home screen. Mine is shown below, but note that mine is pink because I customized it, which you can do by following the steps outlined here.)

If you don't have voicemail set up at all, you'll see a screen that says, "To get voicemail, you must first set up a password and greeting." Tap "Set Up Now" and you'll be prompted to create a password. Both the password and greeting can be changed later, which we'll discuss in a moment.

If you have just set up your voicemail and created the password, you will be taken to a screen to set up your greeting. If you already have voicemail, you can access this screen by pressing "Greeting" in the upper right corner.