If you want to send fax from Gmail, you can do it in the next few minutes. With a good third-party fax service, the process is really quite straightforward. You can even deliver your first Gmail faxes for free. Let’s take a look at how to send a fax via Gmail today in a few simple steps.

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How to Send a Fax Via Gmail: Send Your Fax Instantly

How Faxing from Gmail Works

You might be wondering how a fax can be sent over the telephone lines from your Gmail account, which is on the internet. It’s true that in the past, a business needed its own landline in order to send a fax. But these days, you can fax from your computer or even your phone without a landline. All you need is a wifi connection.

The key is to use someone else’s telephone landline. When you connect to a third-party fax service you can send a PDF document to them from your Gmail account. They then turn it into a fax and deliver it over the Public Switched Telephone Network. At the other end, the receiver’s fax machine will spring to life and print out your document.

Sign Up With RingCentral

First of all, you’ll need to open an account with RingCentral. They offer a free trial while you learn the ropes of Gmail faxing. They’ll also provide you with a fax number if you wish to receive faxes in your Gmail inbox as well as send them.

Input Your Gmail Address 

Next, you need to connect your Gmail account to RingCentral. You can do this by going to “settings” and navigating to “Outbound Calls/Faxes.” Here, enter your Gmail address into the list of permitted email accounts and save it. You’re now ready to use your Gmail account like a fax machine.

Compose a New Email

Open your Gmail account and compose a new email. Attach the document you wish to fax to the email. This document should be in PDF format.

You can also type a few words into the subject line of the email if you like. Anything you write here will print out on the fax cover page.

Input Your Recipient’s Fax Number

It’s surprisingly easy to turn a fax number into an email format. For instance, the fax number 8661234567 becomes 8661234567@rcfax.com.

Using this format, put your recipient’s fax number into the “TO” box of your email. You can send the same fax to other recipients at the same time if you like. Simply add their suffixed fax numbers into the “CC” box of your email.

Send Your Email

When you hit “Send,” your document will go straight to your provider, where it’s immediately turned into analog fax format and delivered over the telephone network.

Delivery usually takes one minute for each page of your PDF document. This will be slightly longer if your document includes pictures.

Why It’s Better to Send Fax From Gmail Than Fax Machine

Using old-school fax machines has quite a few downsides. For one, storage is often a cumbersome issue. It’s hard for businesses to file and catalog hundreds and even thousands of printed fax documents over the years. These printed pieces of paper can degrade or go missing.

With Gmail faxing, every document you send or receive can be easily stored in Google Docs or another secure cloud-based storage system. From there, it’s easy to organize documents and also to share them.

See how quickly you can send your very first Gmail fax today. Test Drive Our #1 Recommended Choice!

You need to send a fax quickly, so we won’t waste your time. Let’s get right into how to fax from Gmail. We’ve got everything you need here, including a link to the best service for sending faxes this way.

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How to Fax From Gmail: Hit Send in Five Minutes or Less

1. Sign up With a Fax Service

Step one is to sign up with a fax service like RingCentral. They offer a free 30-day trial, so you can’t go wrong here. If you’re in a hurry, simply sign up, send your fax, and then consider the various options for a long-term account later.

Once you sign up with RingCentral, you’ll get your own fax number, which you can use to receive faxes if you need, and you will link your Gmail account. Then you’re ready to roll. This whole step won’t take more than three minutes.

2. Open Your Email and Choose Compose

Open your Gmail account on any device and choose to start a new email. It’s that simple.

3. Address Your Email

Now you need to make sure your fax gets sent to the correct recipient’s fax machine. They should’ve given you a fax number that looks something like this (if they’re in the United States): (111) 222-3333. You will simply put this number in without any of those special characters or spaces and follow it with the suffix that ensures it goes to your fax service. What you put in the To field should look like this: 1112223333@rcfax.com.

If you’re sending to an international number, you’ll follow the same protocol. Just add the country code, the area code (if there is one), and the number (with no spaces or special characters of any sort), followed by your fax service suffix. You can send to multiple fax machines at once by simply separating each one with a comma, just as you would send to multiple email addresses.

4. Attach Documents

Now you just attach documents in the same way as you would to any email. You can attach documents from your own computer or any data storage system, like Dropbox. You can attach any type of document, but PDF is usually the best for a fax.

5. Write a Cover Letter

There’s no requirement to send a cover letter, but a cover letter will protect your fax when it arrives at its destination. Say, for example, that you have to send a private medical record to the hospital for review by a certain doctor. A cover letter allows office personnel at the hospital to see who the fax is from and who it should be delivered to while never having to take a look at any of your private information.

To send a cover letter, either choose from one of the many templates provided by your fax service or just type what you want to say into the body of your email (so it’s easy to write and has all the spacing you want), and then cut and paste this into the subject line. Do not leave anything in the body of your email: nothing you leave in the body will get sent. Be sure to put your cover letter into the subject line.

That’s all there is to it! You’re sending a fax, and it took less than five minutes. Next time, it’ll be even quicker now that you know how to do it. Test Drive Our #1 Recommended Choice and Fax Free for 30 Days!

Fax is still popular, but a fax machine is not. Thanks to the internet, now you don’t need to own a fax machine to send a fax. If you have a Gmail account, you can send a Gmail fax from your mobile or computer in a few minutes! Check out step-by-step instructions on how to send and receive fax using your Gmail account.

How to Send a Gmail Fax

Step 1

First of all, you’ll need an online fax number to get started. RingCentral is one of the best online fax service providers out there, and there are others available.

Once you sign up, you’ll get an option to select a toll-free or a local number that you can use to send and receive faxes. You can even use your existing number if you want.

Step 2

Open your Gmail and click ‘Compose’ to create a new email. If you have some text that you’d like to appear on the cover page, write it down in the subject line.

Type your message in the message field. If you have any files, images, or documents you’d like to send as an attachment, now would be the time to attach them to the email.

Step 3

Enter the fax number of the recipient fax machine’s 10-digit phone number followed by @rcfax.com. For example, if the fax number is 1234567890, type it as 1234567890@rcfax.com in the ‘To’ field and click the ‘Send’ button.

Now sit back and relax: your fax is on its way! You will get an email saying that your fax was sent successfully.

Step 4 (Optional)

If you’d like to schedule the fax for a later date, you can do that with Gmail. Click the small downward arrow on the ‘Send’ button and select ‘Schedule Send’. Choose the date and time of your liking and Gmail will send your fax automatically.

How to Receive a Gmail Fax

Step 1

Remember the fax number you chose while signing up for RingCentral or your other fax service? All you have to do is share that number with the person you’d like to receive a fax from. It’s just that simple. One of the reasons we prefer RingCentral to other options is that you have the option to get a dedicated fax number all your own.

Step 2

Whether they use a fax machine or online fax services to send faxes doesn’t matter. You will receive the fax in your Gmail inbox just like any other email. All you have to do is click that email and view the content of the fax. If the sender sent any attachments, it will be there in the email received.

Step 3

If you want to forward the fax to someone, do it as you would normally forward an email. One of the main reasons people still use fax is because it creates a paper trail, and you don’t miss out on that by using an email fax service. Your Gmail account will save the logs of all the sent and received faxes just like emails.

That’s how you use Gmail to send faxes! It’s super easy and gets the job done. Why invest in an out-dated and expensive fax machine when you can choose a simple online fax service? These services are easy-to-use, low-cost, and offer features that a fax machine can only dream of. For example, RingCentral allows you to send and receive faxes from smartphones, tablets, and computers. Sign up for their 30-day free trial to check out all the features, and learn more at GoogleFax today.

Can you fax from Gmail? A lot of people are asking this question, and the good news is that is easy to fax from an email. In fact, you can be faxing from your Gmail account in less than five minutes. Just follow the steps outlined below that make it simple.

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Can You Fax From Gmail? Get Faxing in Just Five Minutes

First, understand that Gmail does not offer its own faxing service. You can fax from Gmail, but you will need a third-party fax service to do it for you. Gmail sends information over the Internet, but international faxing protocol requires that faxes be sent over traditional wires via the telephone system. Traditional fax machines work by scanning the documents you put into them, transforming that scan into an audio signal, and sending the signal over telephone lines. The machine on the other end has the capability to translate the audio signal and then print it.

To send a fax that comes in via email requires you to have a special machine that can digitally scan an email attachment and turn it into an audio signal to be sent over phone lines, just like a traditional fax. That way, it can be received by any fax machine in the world just as if it had been sent by a regular fax. If you’re being told that an entity will only work with you if you send them things by fax, this is a great, secure way to fulfill that requirement. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Sign Up and Link Your Gmail

Find a reliable, secure third-party fax service with a good track record and an established presence. The entire point of faxes is that they are more secure than email, so you want a company that will treat your faxes securely. Services that offer to fax things for free in perpetuity are making their money somewhere: by selling your information or even putting ads on your faxes.

Also, make sure that your fax service is sending genuine faxes. If the other party is required to download an app in order to receive your fax, then it’s not actually a fax. Once you’ve signed up, all you have to do is link your Gmail account. This whole process takes just a minute or two. Once your email is linked, you’ll be able to send faxes from your Gmail account in the same way that you send emails.

2. Open and Attach Documents

Once your Gmail account is linked, open it and compose a new email. You’ll attach whatever documents you want to send to this email. You can attach any sort of document you like, but your fax service will be transforming it into a PDF for sending as a fax.

For this reason, and for security in general, it’s almost always best to go ahead and transform your documents into PDFs prior to sending them. PDF files are a lot harder to alter than a word processing document.

3. Address and Add a Cover Letter

In the To field of your new email, you will put the phone number of your recipient’s fax machine. Just put the number itself. The number you have from them may look like this: (444) 222-9999, but that’s not how you’ll render it. Take out all the spaces and characters, then add your third-party fax service’s suffix. The end result will look like this: 4442220000@rcfax.com.

Then, all you have to do is type your cover letter into the subject line, if you want to cover letter, and hit send.

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Do you need to send a fax right now? Follow the steps outlined here, and you can send a fax through email in just a couple minutes.

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How to Send a Fax Through Email Right Away

1. Sign Up With a Fax Service

First, you’ll need to sign up for a fax service that can send your emailed documents as faxing according to international faxing protocols. Your email provider doesn’t actually have a fax service because everything they send goes over the Internet. There are various fax services to choose from, but we recommend using an established service with a good track record of security and professionalism, like RingCentral.

There are “fax” apps available on the various app stores for the mobile devices you own, but these aren’t true fax services for the most part. They call themselves that, but they aren’t sending any faxes over landlines, and the other party must have the same app in order to receive your fax. Security is very questionable, too, so these applications aren’t safe for sending sensitive documents.

A true fax service will send an actual fax, which your recipient can receive at an actual fax machine if that’s what they’re using. Furthermore, you need a service that takes security seriously and won’t spam your fax with ads printed on top of it.

2. Link Your Email and Compose

Once you have signed up for your fax service, was just takes a moment or two, you then have the option to link your email. You can send a fax right there through your fax service website portal, but most people prefer to link through email because it’s just so easy and intuitive to use.

Once you do this, sending a fax becomes just as simple as sending an email. When you’re ready to send your fax, just choose Compose as if you were writing a new email.

3. Address Your Fax

When you go to address your fax, all you need is the phone number of your recipient’s fax machine. This phone number may be expressed traditionally, meaning, there are special characters and spaces in it. You won’t use any of these when you address your fax to send it as an email.

Instead, you’ll use the numbers only, followed by the suffix @rcfax.com (which sends it to RingCentral), and you’ll put this into the To field of your email. Your address will look something like this: 9998887676@rcfax.com

4. Attach Documents and Put on a Cover Letter

You don’t have to print out the documents you want to send as you do if you’re using a traditional fax machine. All you have to do is attach those documents just as you would attach them to any email. That means the documents can come from your own computer or from any place where you store documents, such as Google Drive.

You can attach any documents you like, but the best and most secure are usually PDF. To put a cover letter on your fax, simply type this into the Subject field of the email. Remember that you should have nothing whatsoever in the body of your email. Nothing in the body will get sent.

Are you ready to try email faxing and see how fast and easy it can be? It’s the simplest way to send a fax these days, and your recipient will receive the fax just as if you’d sent it from a traditional fax machine. Test Drive Our #1 Recommended Choice and Fax Free for 30 Days!

Looking to send a digital fax? It couldn’t be easier. All you need is a few quick steps, and your fax will be on its way. The first one can be done in less than ten minutes, and after that, it will be even faster.

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Sending a Digital Fax Is Easy: 4 Super-Quick Steps

1. Sign up With a Third-Party Fax Service

Faxes must be sent over phone lines, so you can’t send a fax online without a third-party service. There are plenty out there: but beware. Services that offer “free” faxing need some way to pay the bills, and that usually comes by selling ads that will print on your fax or selling your personal information. Security is also a big concern.

Companies that aren’t charging usually don’t have the resources to invest in proper security protocols, leaving your faxes vulnerable to hackers and other cybersecurity issues. A solid service will be one that’s been around for a while and has an established reputation. Most will also offer you a free trial period to be sure the service offers the value you need.

2. Link Your Email, Use an App, or Go Online

Once you’ve signed up, which just takes moments, you can either send a fax right there from the online app, or you can link your email account and send faxes from there. If you download the service’s mobile app, that’s another option for sending faxes on your mobile device. While all of these are options, your email is the most intuitive way to do this. Once you’re linked, sending a fax becomes as easy as sending an email.

3. Address Your Fax and Attach Your Documents

If you’re on the fax service’s own portal, you’ll need your recipient’s fax number. You don’t need any spaces or special characters in that: just the numbers. If you’re using your email, you’ll put that number in the To field, followed by the fax service suffix. Your address will look like this: 4445556767@rcfax.com.

Then, you’ll attach your documents. These can come from your own computer, or you can get them from Dropbox or Google Drive. You can send several types of documents, but the best is almost always going to be PDF. If you’re using your own email, don’t put anything in the email body. Just attach the documents as you’d attach documents to an email.

4. Compose a Cover Letter and Send

You might not want a cover letter, but if you do, just type that into the Subject line of your email fax. If you’re using the fax service portal, you’ll likely even have options for cover letter templates. Whether or not you have a cover letter, the only thing you need to do when you’re ready to send is hit the Send button. You’re done, and your fax is on the way!

How Long Does It Take to Get There?

Your fax shouldn’t take more than five to ten minutes at most, depending on the receiving party. You don’t have to stand around waiting at the fax machine to get confirmation (or wait for a busy signal on the other end to resolve). You can go back to work and life, and your fax service will let you know right away when the fax has been sent.

Sending a fax online is the easiest way to get it done. Whether you just need to send one or two or you need to send faxes regularly, get rid of that machine and switch to digital. Test Drive Our #1 Recommended Choice and Fax Free for 30 Days!

Today, sending a fax from a computer is as commonplace as sending an email. Many people still prefer the former because they cannot be plagued with viruses or get blocked and delivered to an obscure “junk” folder. For this, we recommend keeping it simple and using your Gmail account.

Step 1: Select an Online Service Provider

Before you can start sending faxes digitally, you need an online service provider who will assign you a fax number. Keep in mind that Google (your Gmail provider) does not generate or distribute fax numbers.

A service provider performs the work necessary to send and deliver your faxes. Under this broad umbrella falls converting messages you receive into PDF format and delivering them to your inbox. Similarly, to send your messages, a provider first accepts your transmissions at their servers and then pushes them to the receiver’s fax machine.

Step 2: Log Into Gmail

Once you’ve selected a service provider, you can begin faxing. Remember that the Gmail address you use for faxing must be the same as that which you gave to your service provider. If the addresses don’t match, your fax will most likely be rejected.

The steps you’re about to follow will be identical to those of sending a new email. So, within your Gmail browser-based interface or app, click or tap the Compose button. What you’re preparing to do now is create a new message.

Step 3: Recipient Information

In the To field, where you would normally enter an email address, you can put the recipient’s 10-digit fax number. This must be followed by your service provider’s domain. For instance, if you have a RingCentral account, and the fax is going to 1-333-444-5555, you enter 13334445555@rcfax.com.

The domain is very important, and your service provider will ensure you have it so you can properly send faxes. On your end, you must verify that you enter it accurately each time you send a fax.

Step 4: Type Your Message

Just as when sending an email attachment you write an introductory message in the body of the email, you should do the same when sending a fax. You might think of this as the cover letter. Feel free to include all relevant information and sign your name as appropriate.

Step 5: Add the Attachment

It is now time to add the documents required for your fax. You include these exactly as you would an email attachment. If using a browser, click the paper clip icon (used to represent attachments) and choose the file you need to transmit. Similarly, in the Gmail app, touch the paper clip icon and select your file.

A variety of formats can be supported, including popular PDF, JPG, and DOC. Multiple attachments can also typically be supported.

Step 6: Ready to Send Your Fax From a Computer

If you’ve looked over your message and feel satisfied with it, and if all of your files are properly attached, you’re ready to transmit. Hit the Send button; depending on the speed of your provider, your fax should go through immediately. You can often find confirmation of the transmission in your provider’s user interface.

Step 7: Enjoy the Benefits of No-Hassle Faxing

Perhaps the greatest benefit of sending faxes this way is convenience. You don’t need an actual fax machine or a landline number to send important messages. Instead, the combined efforts of your service provider and Gmail account will ensure swift delivery. As mentioned earlier, fax is often more secure than email, and for those businesses or people who prefer the former, you can now promptly communicate with them.

Sending a fax from a computer takes mere minutes. With a few short clicks, your fax will be delivered as you continue with your day. Contact GoogleFax today and see who we recommend for your web-based service provider – and enjoy a free 30-day trial.