On 2/20/25 07:48, bad sector wrote:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to do?
Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere?  TIA.

addendum: these would be voicemails sent FROM the phone that can still
be listened to but which I want to export.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2/20/25 07:48, bad sector wrote:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to do?
Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere?  TIA.

more adendum, apologies but I'm being given details in very piecemeal
fashion.

It seems that the voice messages were sent by a 7 year old child trained
just enough to use his (dead) father's phone in an emergency, so the
child sent a few messages to his mother via facebook messenger. These
messages are stil listenable on that phone but I need to save them out
before they end up in /dev/null.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to do?
Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere? TIA.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:

On 2/20/25 07:48, bad sector wrote:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to do?
Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere?  TIA.

more adendum, apologies but I'm being given details in very piecemeal fashion.

It seems that the voice messages were sent by a 7 year old child trained
just enough to use his (dead) father's phone in an emergency, so the
child sent a few messages to his mother via facebook messenger. These messages are stil listenable on that phone but I need to save them out
before they end up in /dev/null.

There would be no "voicemails" to export from the FROM from since that
is not where the voicemails would exist. You would need a recording
option in the cellular account, but I don't recall any that record on
every call, only on those where the phone user elects to record a
conversation.

In another message, you said you want to record voicemails sent FROM the [kid's] phone. The only voicemails the callee (the kid) has access to
are those in his phone's cellular account where the voicemail was left
TO the kid FROM the caller.

This is no different than with an answering machine. The audio is at
the callee's end (the kid), not at the caller's end (whoever called the
kid).

Does the cellular account the kid is using have a web interface to that account? Might have an option there to export voicemail. Else, a lot
depends on which phone/voicemail app the kid's phone is using. Open the voicemail app on the phone, select (tap and hold) the voicemail you want
to save, and select Save, Export, Archive, or Share from the menu, or
click a 3-button menu to get to those options. Navigation and what
options are available depend on the phone and voicemail app.

Someone using your phone, and your voicemail app, would better know or
test what works, but they'd need to know your phone and model. Saving voicemail is done at the end that received the call where the caller
left a message. The caller won't have a copy of the voicemail, but they
could record their call.

A search, like https://www.google.com/search?q=android+voicemail+export,
finds potential help articles, like:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-permanently-save-voicemails-in-ios-and-android/

but you might get better focused answers by adding the make and model of
phone, and which app is used for voicemail. By ancient 5-year old phone
with its ancient Android 8 with its bundled apps don't have save or
export options on voicemail, so whether you have those options probably
depends on which Android version and/or on the phone/voicemail app, or
perhaps both.

In most cases, voicemail is not stored on the phone, but at the cellular provider's service, and why I mentioned you should check if there are
export or save options using the web client to the account. Alas, seems
MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) are lacking many of such
features, part of the loss of features in the cost saving of using an
MVNO. Tracfone, for example, is an MVNO.

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VanguardLH wrote:

There would be no "voicemails" to export from the FROM from since that
is not where the voicemails would exist.

I suspect the type of "voicemail" we're talking about here are likely to
be WhatsApp Voice Messages, I don't use WA, but there are apps that
claim to do it, e.g.

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp.voicemessages.saver>

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Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

There would be no "voicemails" to export from the FROM from since that
is not where the voicemails would exist.

I suspect the type of "voicemail" we're talking about here are likely to
be WhatsApp Voice Messages, I don't use WA, but there are apps that
claim to do it, e.g.

<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp.voicemessages.saver>

The OP ('bad sector') said "the child sent a few messages to his
mother via facebook messenger". Facebook Messenger is not the same as
WhatsApp. So this seems to be a question about saving a voice message on
the sending side of Facebook Messenger.

I know nothing about Facebook Messenger, but I assume they can do a
'take out' kind of operation, assuming they can access the Facebook
account of the sending side.

Alternatively, they may be able to forward the voice message to some
other Facebook account and retrieve it there.

But this assumes that both the sending and receiving side used
Facebook Messenger, which does not have to be the case.

For example, with Skype, I can make a voice call to a regular phone
number. In that case, the voice message on the receiving side has
absolutely nothing to do with Skype, only with the voice mail system
of/at the recipient's telco.

So we need more details. I.e. who sent what to whom and which
mechanism(s) was/were used, both on the sending and on the receiving
side(s)?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2/20/25 11:13, Roger Mills wrote:

On 20/02/2025 13:05, bad sector wrote:

On 2/20/25 07:48, bad sector wrote:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to
do? Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere?  TIA.

more adendum, apologies but I'm being given details in very piecemeal
fashion.

It seems that the voice messages were sent by a 7 year old child
trained just enough to use his (dead) father's phone in an emergency,
so the child sent a few messages to his mother via facebook messenger.
These messages are stil listenable on that phone but I need to save
them out before they end up in /dev/null.

OK, so they're not voicemail messages in the conventional sense, but FB Messenger messages. The fact that you can still listen to them indicates
that they must be stored *somewhere* - either on the phone itself or in
some cloud or other. Do you need internet access in order to be able to listen to the messages? If so, they'll be on a cloud - if not, they'll
be on the phone. If the latter, they'll be in a folder where FB
Messenger stores its files. If so, you may be able to copy them to a computer, using FTP or a USB cable. However, they may well be in a proprietory audio format which no other sofware understands - so that
may not help a lot.

Does the phone have a headphone socket? If so, the best bet may be to 'listen' via that socket, using a cable to connect the socket to a
computer's audio input socket, and then to record the audio using
Audacity or similar. [With the correct audio settings on the computer,
you'll be able to hear the messages as you record them]. If the phone
doesn't have a headphone socket, you may be able to use Bluetooth instead.

Thanks everyone, I just got off a very long chat with Telus and am
tired. Will be back after lunch. These are facebook messenger messages
and I 'could' forward them but only to other facebook users and it's
unclear if or how anyone could export them. Later.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2/20/25 12:31, VanguardLH wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:

On 2/20/25 11:13, Roger Mills wrote:

On 20/02/2025 13:05, bad sector wrote:

On 2/20/25 07:48, bad sector wrote:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to
do? Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere?  TIA.

more adendum, apologies but I'm being given details in very piecemeal
fashion.

It seems that the voice messages were sent by a 7 year old child
trained just enough to use his (dead) father's phone in an emergency,
so the child sent a few messages to his mother via facebook messenger. >>>> These messages are stil listenable on that phone but I need to save
them out before they end up in /dev/null.

OK, so they're not voicemail messages in the conventional sense, but FB
Messenger messages. The fact that you can still listen to them indicates >>> that they must be stored *somewhere* - either on the phone itself or in
some cloud or other. Do you need internet access in order to be able to
listen to the messages? If so, they'll be on a cloud - if not, they'll
be on the phone. If the latter, they'll be in a folder where FB
Messenger stores its files. If so, you may be able to copy them to a
computer, using FTP or a USB cable. However, they may well be in a
proprietory audio format which no other sofware understands - so that
may not help a lot.

Does the phone have a headphone socket? If so, the best bet may be to
'listen' via that socket, using a cable to connect the socket to a
computer's audio input socket, and then to record the audio using
Audacity or similar. [With the correct audio settings on the computer,
you'll be able to hear the messages as you record them]. If the phone
doesn't have a headphone socket, you may be able to use Bluetooth instead. >>

Thanks everyone, I just got off a very long chat with Telus and am
tired. Will be back after lunch. These are facebook messenger messages
and I 'could' forward them but only to other facebook users and it's
unclear if or how anyone could export them. Later.

I found this:

Decipher Messenger Export https://deciphertools.com/decipher-messenger-export.html

but it's not free ($20). There might other similar tools, and maybe
some free, but I don't do Facebook, or any other social needy media sht...shhtuff, so my eyes skimmed other that part of your posts.

I have no idea what functions are available if you login into your
Facebook account using a web browser (i.e., use their web app).

https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/713635396288741

From some users that tried doing this, it takes time for Facebook to
build the .zip file before you can download it, so you have to check
back later to see if the file is available for download.

Again, I want to thank everyone who chimed in! I'm not familiar with
sphones yet so I just took a shot at Roger's suggestion and started
jack, then Audacity, and plugged the phone headset cable into the
soundcard mic port and recorded with Audacity. Seeing nothing on the
wave profile was at first a downer but it was THERE. Amplified the weak trembling voice mostly +30*-ish and ...done.

I don't like ventilating personal details on open net but owe this much
to those ready to help. My son collapsed and died without warning near
midnight a month ago with only his 7 year old son and dog as other
occupants in the house. So far little is known about what went on all
night but in the morning my grandson took the phone out of his father's
pocket as he had been trained and dialed his mother living elsewhere
(using facebook messenger). She was probably sleeping so it took half a
dozen tries but they finally connected and she rushed over, tried to resuscitate to no avail of course and also called the medics who on
arrival immediately took care of the kid and control of the situation.
He had been a nurse and took three major Covid hits on the job and was
also obliged to take all vaccines, either or both of which are
documented as destroying artery walls among other things; in his case a coronaty artery burst and that was it. Full autopsy data will take up to
a year before getting to *us*.

Other than the Covid issues I'm a little put off by finding that the
ORIGINATOR of an audio message would have to jump through hoops to have
a physical copy of his own voice message while it exists in who knows
how many 'clouds' of all places! I don't do any social media either as a
matter of policy.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> wrote:

On 2/20/25 11:13, Roger Mills wrote:

On 20/02/2025 13:05, bad sector wrote:

On 2/20/25 07:48, bad sector wrote:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to
do? Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere?  TIA.

more adendum, apologies but I'm being given details in very piecemeal
fashion.

It seems that the voice messages were sent by a 7 year old child
trained just enough to use his (dead) father's phone in an emergency,
so the child sent a few messages to his mother via facebook messenger.
These messages are stil listenable on that phone but I need to save
them out before they end up in /dev/null.

OK, so they're not voicemail messages in the conventional sense, but FB
Messenger messages. The fact that you can still listen to them indicates
that they must be stored *somewhere* - either on the phone itself or in
some cloud or other. Do you need internet access in order to be able to
listen to the messages? If so, they'll be on a cloud - if not, they'll
be on the phone. If the latter, they'll be in a folder where FB
Messenger stores its files. If so, you may be able to copy them to a
computer, using FTP or a USB cable. However, they may well be in a
proprietory audio format which no other sofware understands - so that
may not help a lot.

Does the phone have a headphone socket? If so, the best bet may be to
'listen' via that socket, using a cable to connect the socket to a
computer's audio input socket, and then to record the audio using
Audacity or similar. [With the correct audio settings on the computer,
you'll be able to hear the messages as you record them]. If the phone
doesn't have a headphone socket, you may be able to use Bluetooth instead.

Thanks everyone, I just got off a very long chat with Telus and am
tired. Will be back after lunch. These are facebook messenger messages
and I 'could' forward them but only to other facebook users and it's
unclear if or how anyone could export them. Later.

I found this:

Decipher Messenger Export https://deciphertools.com/decipher-messenger-export.html

but it's not free ($20). There might other similar tools, and maybe
some free, but I don't do Facebook, or any other social needy media sht...shhtuff, so my eyes skimmed other that part of your posts.

I have no idea what functions are available if you login into your
Facebook account using a web browser (i.e., use their web app).


https://www.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/713635396288741

From some users that tried doing this, it takes time for Facebook to
build the .zip file before you can download it, so you have to check
back later to see if the file is available for download.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2025-02-20 14:05, bad sector wrote:

On 2/20/25 07:48, bad sector wrote:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to do?
Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere?  TIA.

more adendum, apologies but I'm being given details in very piecemeal fashion.

It seems that the voice messages were sent by a 7 year old child trained
just enough to use his (dead) father's phone in an emergency, so the
child sent a few messages to his mother via facebook messenger. These messages are stil listenable on that phone but I need to save them out
before they end up in /dev/null.

I was going to say that the crucial detail is what app was used to send
the messages. For example, with whatsapp the voice files are accessible,
or were, when I tried over five years ago, before encryption.

Ok, it is voice messages made with facebook messenger. I don't even have
that app installed.

If you access the same account on the computer, do you get the same
messages?

I found instructions on google:

how to copy facebook voice messages to file?

«Find the message containing the audio clip or voice recording that you
want to download. Click the three vertical dots next to the audio clip
and select Download. If you're using Chrome or a Chrome-based browser,
you will see an icon of three vertical dots on the right side of the recording.Nov 26, 2024

How to Download Audio from Facebook Messenger?
MiniTool movie maker
https://moviemaker.minitool.com › MovieMaker»

<https://moviemaker.minitool.com/moviemaker/how-to-download-audio-from-facebook-messenger.html>

If that doesn't apply, there are more recipes in the same search.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

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On 2/20/25 13:47, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-02-20 14:05, bad sector wrote:

On 2/20/25 07:48, bad sector wrote:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to
do? Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere?  TIA.

more adendum, apologies but I'm being given details in very piecemeal
fashion.

It seems that the voice messages were sent by a 7 year old child
trained just enough to use his (dead) father's phone in an emergency,
so the child sent a few messages to his mother via facebook messenger.
These messages are stil listenable on that phone but I need to save
them out before they end up in /dev/null.

I was going to say that the crucial detail is what app was used to send
the messages. For example, with whatsapp the voice files are accessible,
or were, when I tried over five years ago, before encryption.

Ok, it is voice messages made with facebook messenger. I don't even have
that app installed.

If you access the same account on the computer, do you get the same
messages?

I found instructions on google:

how to copy facebook voice messages to file?

«Find the message containing the audio clip or voice recording that you
want to download. Click the three vertical dots next to the audio clip
and select Download. If you're using Chrome or a Chrome-based browser,
you will see an icon of three vertical dots on the right side of the recording.Nov 26, 2024

How to Download Audio from Facebook Messenger?
MiniTool movie maker
https://moviemaker.minitool.com › MovieMaker»

<https://moviemaker.minitool.com/moviemaker/how-to-download-audio-from- facebook-messenger.html>

If that doesn't apply, there are more recipes in the same search.

We can't log into any of his acccounts, no passwords for none of them.
We have physical posession of his phone and sec code, laptop, and
desktop. Funny thing is that just weeks earlier we had a discussion
about how careful "I" was in making access to my rags easy in case I
should go. NO ONE ever thought that he would go first and the state of
his phone and computer are proof. But it's ok, now that I can record any
sound coming out of any phone with a mini headset port that issue has a solution. I've already saved out 7 or 9 thousand pictures and videos,
cleaned his laptop out before that, now I'm free to start recovering his desktopo computer. Think I'll do that on the suse list seing that his
main system appears to have been Leap-15.x

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bad sector, 2025-02-20 13:48:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to do?
Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere? TIA.

No, there are no "plain mp3" anywwhere. By default, all data in Android
is usually stored internally in the protected data folder of the
respective app *or* on a server and the app just loads the data from
that server.

Maybe the app itself does an export, save or "share" feature. When
"sharing" the recording you should be able to select a file manager app
to save it somehwere.

One thing you can always do is to play back the message and record it
using an audio recorder on another device.

--
Arno Welzel
https://arnowelzel.de

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bad sector <forgetski@_invalid.net> wrote:
[...]

We can't log into any of his acccounts, no passwords for none of them.
We have physical posession of his phone and sec code, laptop, and
desktop.

As I said before, I don't know anything about Facebook Messenger (or
Facebook itself), but as you say you can still play the Facebook
Messenger voice messages on his phone, I think that *on his phone*
you're still logged into his Facebook account.

At least that's the way most of these servives on smartphones work:
You log into their account and never log out.

If my thinking is correct, then maybe, just maybe, you will be able to
change the password. OTOH, when trying to change the password, Facebook
might ask for the old one, so you would be stuck. Often these services
have a password reset function, but that probably means you will have to
have access to some other of his resources, for example his e-mail
account that is associated with his Facebook account. Best not to try
any of this (password changes) until you've run out of other options.

Anyway, Carlos explained how to download the voice messages via a web
login on his Facebook account, but in many cases, you can do the
same/similar thing from within the app on the phone. For example that is
how it works for WhatsApp. As Facebook is a Meta company, like WhatsApp
is, I think it's likely you can download the voice messages from within
the Facebook app on his phone.

So first step: Can you get into the Facebook app on his phone?

To the audience: Anyone with Facebook or/and Facebook Messenger
experience - on a smartphone - who can help?

[...]

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On 2/21/25 03:19, Arno Welzel wrote:

bad sector, 2025-02-20 13:48:

I want to save some received voice messages to a usb stick; how to do?
Are these plain mp3's in there somewhere? TIA.

No, there are no "plain mp3" anywwhere. By default, all data in Android
is usually stored internally in the protected data folder of the
respective app *or* on a server and the app just loads the data from
that server.

Maybe the app itself does an export, save or "share" feature. When
"sharing" the recording you should be able to select a file manager app
to save it somehwere.

One thing you can always do is to play back the message and record it
using an audio recorder on another device.

That's what I did; actually the messages were sent messages via
faecesbook messenger, all other avenues smelled bad in addition to being
more than less workable.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2/21/25 08:54, Frank Slootweg wrote:

bad sector <forgetski@_invalid.net> wrote:
[...]

We can't log into any of his acccounts, no passwords for none of them.
We have physical posession of his phone and sec code, laptop, and
desktop.

As I said before, I don't know anything about Facebook Messenger (or Facebook itself), but as you say you can still play the Facebook
Messenger voice messages on his phone, I think that *on his phone*
you're still logged into his Facebook account.

At least that's the way most of these servives on smartphones work:
You log into their account and never log out.

If my thinking is correct, then maybe, just maybe, you will be able to change the password. OTOH, when trying to change the password, Facebook
might ask for the old one, so you would be stuck. Often these services
have a password reset function, but that probably means you will have to
have access to some other of his resources, for example his e-mail
account that is associated with his Facebook account. Best not to try
any of this (password changes) until you've run out of other options.

Anyway, Carlos explained how to download the voice messages via a web login on his Facebook account, but in many cases, you can do the
same/similar thing from within the app on the phone. For example that is
how it works for WhatsApp. As Facebook is a Meta company, like WhatsApp
is, I think it's likely you can download the voice messages from within
the Facebook app on his phone.

So first step: Can you get into the Facebook app on his phone?

To the audience: Anyone with Facebook or/and Facebook Messenger
experience - on a smartphone - who can help?

[...]

Thanks for the hints; I got it licked for now as I can record any audio
playing on the phone via the headset jack. There are not that many that
I really want and the available ones go back a couple of weeks so
there's a rich field to pick from. I did want to make sure that no data
gets dumped because of something like an account closure so I got a hold
of Telus and told them to keep it live and charge the bills to my
account until I stop paying. I expect to have all the audios of interest recorded by Monday.

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