Record your greeting

The greeting is what callers hear before the beep. Recording your own makes the line sound like a shop instead of a phone system.

You’ll find it in Settings → Voicemail → Greeting.

The two ways to do it

Record over the phone

The easiest way, and it uses the handset you already have.

1. Press Record by phone. Callify calls your forwarding number.
2. Answer. You’ll hear: “Record your voicemail greeting after the tone. Press the pound key when you are finished.”
3. Speak your greeting.
4. Press # when you’re done.
5. Callify plays it back to you, confirms it’s saved, and hangs up.

The page updates on its own while the call is happening, so you can watch it progress.

Why does it call me?

Because Callify runs inside the Shopify admin, and Shopify hosts apps in a frame that can’t reach your microphone. Calling your phone is the way around it — and a handset recording sounds more like a phone greeting than a laptop microphone does anyway.

Upload an audio file

If you’d rather use something recorded elsewhere — a voice artist, a quiet room, another take — press the upload option and choose a file.

• MP3, WAV or M4A.
• Up to 60 seconds.
• Up to 5 MB.

Callify converts it to the 8 kHz mono format phone networks use, so it’ll sound like a phone greeting whatever you started with. Don’t worry about matching that format yourself.

Turning your greeting on

Recording or uploading saves the greeting — it doesn’t start playing it.

Switch on Play my custom greeting to put it live. Switch it off and callers hear the default again; your recording stays saved, so this is a safe toggle to flip back and forth.

The page always shows you both, labelled Current greeting and Default greeting, with a note under whichever one callers are hearing right now.

What to say

Short is better. Around 15 seconds is plenty. A greeting that works:

“Thanks for calling [store name]. We can’t take your call right now — leave your name, number and what you need, and we’ll get back to you within one business day.”

Worth including:

• Your store name, so callers know they got the right number.
• What to leave — a number to call back on, especially.
• When you’ll respond. This is the one most people skip, and it’s what stops callers ringing three more times.

Worth skipping: your opening hours. They change, and re-recording a greeting every season is a chore you’ll abandon.

Temporary greetings

Closing for a week? Record a greeting that says so and gives the date you’re back, and switch it on alongside a holiday. Switch it off when you return — your normal greeting is still saved underneath if you re-record it, so keep a copy of the file if you swap often.

If the recording call doesn’t work

“We didn’t hear back from the call…” — Callify called but never got a recording. Usually the call wasn’t answered, or it went to your carrier’s voicemail. Check the forwarding number is right and can take calls, then Try again.

“The call went unanswered.” — it rang out. Have your phone in hand before you press the button.

“No greeting was recorded.” — you answered but hung up without speaking, or without pressing #. Press # to finish.

“A recording call is already in progress.” — one is still live. Let it finish or hang up, then start again.

If an upload is rejected

“Greetings must be an MP3 or WAV file” / “Choose an audio file” — wrong format. Most phones export M4A, which is fine; anything else, convert it first.

“That file is larger than…” — too big. A short greeting shouldn’t be anywhere near the limit, so this usually means a long or very high-quality recording. Trim it.

“Greetings must be 60 seconds or shorter.” — trim it.

“That file couldn’t be read as audio.” — the file is corrupt or isn’t really audio. Try exporting it again as MP3.

Removing your greeting

Remove custom greeting deletes it and puts callers back on the default. It can’t be undone — you’d need to record or upload again — so if you might want it later, just switch Play my custom greeting off instead.