Thanks for the suggestions, folks. I'll have to spend some time deciphering and mulling over the tech aspects such as whether I can use my laptop keypad in lieu of the phone keypad, whether Skype will work with my Mac, etc.

Some of the emails I want to save are songs - e.g., my late father and sister singing to me. The sound quality is poor enough just because they were left as voice mails, so I don't want to worsen that sound quality by trying to use a mic in front of the telephone receiver or put the phone on "speaker phone."

My modem (at least on my older iBook) allows me to hear incoming phone calls (at least when I'm trying to fax and someone picks up the phone on their fax line), but I don't know how to save that sort of incoming audio. I could play around with using that laptop while calling my voice mail. I just don't think there's a "Record" option for that phone input.


Tim, what is an H2 Zoom recorder?

Bernard, how old would a phone have to be to have a dynamic earpiece? Would it have to be an old rotary dial phone? (I think I actually have one of those somewhere.) Or do the earlier touch-tone phones have them too?

Since the 'Telephone Balance Unit' (aka Telephone Hybrid) you referred to is so expensive, I'm wondering if anyone with a studio equipped with one might offer this sort of service, the way professional recording studios do with their other pricey gear.   I'd be glad to pay recording-studio rates to have my voice mails transferred professionally to digital files.