Google Voice adds filters for incoming calls, voicemail

Google Voice may not be Google’s most popular app but it is pretty useful for those who need to call and text traditional phone numbers from an app or a website. It is also used by some businesses as their VoIP infrastructure in places where it’s available. Now they’re making it more convenient for users by adding filters and custom rules for incoming calls so you can customize things like forwarding and voicemail. This seems similar to Gmail filters although there is still a lot that can be done for future updates.

The new options available for Google Voice calls makes it easier to manage and filter those calls that you may not need to answer at the moment. You will be able to make granular settings for specific contacts, similar to how Gmail lets you manage your emails. For example, you can now forward calls from specific contacts to another linked phone number or you can send it directly to voicemail. You can also now screen calls from specific contacts and decide whether or not to take them.

You can also now set up custom voicemail greetings for specific contacts. This way, you’ll be able to personalize what your contacts can hear when they try to get in touch with you. And in case you have specific groups within your contacts that you’d like to apply any of these rules to, you’ll be able to filter and create all the existing rules for different sets and groups. Hopefully, more VoIP and cell services would soon be able to apply granular filtering like this.

There are of course more things that Google can do when it comes to filtering and rules. For example, it would be more convenient to be able to filter text messages and voicemails depending on their content. There should also be an easier way to add filters and rules to numbers that are not yet included in your Google Contacts. But this seems to be just an initial rollout of these rules so eventually, we’ll get more filtering options.

The new features is now available for all Google Voice users and there are no admin controls needed. Hopefully, we get to see more features and improvements on this service if Google is planning to keep it, that is.