I’ve had two iPhones for 5+ years and not only is it totally silly to keep track of two devices and carry them everywhere… I was spending about $850/yr on my personal cell phone (Verizon Plan plus Apple Phone Payments) when work was covering one for me!
This week, I finally decided to fix it. Here’s my step by step guide for how to port your personal number over to your work cell with Google Voice.
Things to Know Before You Start
Porting over a phone that already exists will cost a one time fee of $20. Call your carrier to determine if there are any other fees associated with porting your number. I had a fully paid phone on Verizon and after a quick call to their Customer Service Line was able to determine that I wouldn’t be charged anything extra and once the porting was complete, it would auto-cancel my Verizon service.
Porting takes 24-48 hours for your calls and 3-5 days for your texts. You’ll have a little in between time with both phones so do this when you are not too busy 😉
FIRST STAGE: Back Up Your iPhone
Item 1: Your Contacts
In your iPhone settings, click on “Contacts” and then “Default Account” – you’ll want this to be on “Gmail” instead of “iCloud”.
Be sure to back up all of your contacts to your Gmail account so that they will show up in your Google Voice app. Otherwise, you’ll only have your work contacts.
I used CopyTrans to export my photos from my phone to my Gmail.
Item 2: Your Photos
Use the Google Photos App to back up all of your photos.
Item 3: Your Apps
Apple only lets you have one Apple ID on your phone. If you have different Apple IDs for each phone, be sure to use the one that you’ve purchased apps with on the phone you are keeping.
SECOND STAGE: Porting Your Number
Step 1: Sign into Google Voice
Sign in with your Gmail account or create a new account
Download the Google Voice App onto the phone you will be keeping and sign in there as well.
Step 2: Get a Google Voice Number
You can choose anything, this number will go away once you’ve ported your new one over.
Step 3: Port Your Number
Click the menu button in the top left corner
Click “Settings”
Your Google Voice number will appear at the top of the page, under that click “Transfer”
Follow the tabs and instructions, it’s an easy step by step process. Here’s what you’ll be agreeing to:
Fill out payment info, you can do this with a credit or debit card through google payments.
If the phone porting worked, then you’ll get a payment confirmation email.
Wait for 24 – 48 hours and your number will start ringing through Google Voice. Verizon automatically shut down my account with them when the porting happened. Check with your carrier to see if you need to do anything extra to avoid paying the old bill.
Texts take 3-5 business days to port over. Be sure to let anyone who texts you a lot to be aware that you may not get them for a few days.
THIRD STAGE: Using One iPhone
Step 1: The Google Voice App
You’ll use the Google Voice app to make calls that you want to come from your personal number. It will look just like a regular call to both you and the other person.
Step 2: Set up voicemail
Google Voice automatically “screens” calls for you. So anyone that calls you will be asked for their name and then you will be prompt’ed to accept the call. You can turn this off in settings.
Also in settings, you can edit your voicemail greeting to be your name and voice.
If you need support along the way, here’s the link for google voice support.
That’s it! You are a one-cell-phone person again. All that’s left to do is decide what you’ll do with the money you’ll save each month 🙂
Has anyone else successfully ported over their cell number? Let us know how it went in the comments!
This is something that I’ve been meaning to do forever! Thanks for the tutorial.