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.

That’s all you have to do! Test Drive Our #1 Recommended Choice and Fax Free for 30 Days!