Image credit: John Britton / Flickr

Q: Here’s a question about a lower-tech gadget. I have a Panasonic cordless telephone with a digital answering machine. Over the years, it has collected several messages that I’d like to archive. I don’t see any inputs or outputs for doing this. Is there a way to permanently store the messages on this answering machine digitally?

A: Your question would be a lot easier to answer if your phone wasn’t cordless. If your phone had a cord on it, you would only have to buy a mini recorder control from RadioShack to connect it directly to your computer or recorder so that you could record from it. But, there are three different ways that you can extract the voicemails from the answering machine.

The Caveman Way (or The Obvious Way)

Since it is cordless, you’ll have to transfer the messages wirelessly, using the oldest form of wireless communication: sound. Hold a the microphone of a recorder up to speaker of your answering machine. Press Record on the recorder, and press Play on the answering machine. Ta da! You have a mildly listenable digital recording.

The MacGyver Way (or The Hacker Way)

If you’re feeling a little handy, there is a another method that will give you a higher quality recording. (Disclaimer: This will destroy your answering machine. It will never function in the way it was intended to function again. You could also lose all of your voicemails in the process. Proceed with caution. Also, you may want to try recording them “The Caveman Way” first, just in case.)

First, you’ll need to get a speaker cable with a ? inch plug on one side and two bare wires on the other end. You need it to be long enough to reach from your answering machine to the back of your computer or to your recorder.

Once you have the wire, you’ll need to open the answering machine case. It usually only takes a few screws to open the case.

Now, look for the speaker. You may be able to see where the speaker before you open the case. It’s where the sound is coming out of the case.

Now that you have the case open, and you have found the speaker, you should see two wires connected to the speaker. Cut or remove them from the speaker.

Splice the wires from the answering machine together with the speaker cable. Never spliced wires before? Check out the previous link for a guide from Instructables.

Finally, plug the ? plug into the microphone port on your computer or recording device.

Now, if you are recording on your computer, fire up recording software like Audacity or GarageBand and press record. If you’re using a recording device, just press record. Then, press Play on the answering machine.

If you did everything right, you should be getting a digital recording of your voicemails that sounds better than anything you could have recorded “The Caveman Way.”

If you didn’t do everything right, then you have a useless pile of plastic and circuit board. Sorry about that!

The Safer Way (or The Nerdy Way)

Since your answering machine is a digital machine, it likely has a remote access feature. Find the manual for your answering machine, (Yeah, right. You can look up the manual for your answering machine on Panasonic’s website.) and find the instructions on how to access your answering machine remotely.

Once you know how to access it remotely, use a service like Google Voice to record the call.