Can You Use Email to Send a Fax?

Do you need to send a fax but you don't have a fax machine? Don't worry, there's no need to rush out to buy one. You can easily send a fax from your email. In this article, we'll lay out how to do so by using an email-to-fax service.

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Can You Use Email to Send a Fax?

How Your Email Turns Into a Fax

Faxed documents are delivered over analog telephone lines, not the internet. When you connect a faxing service like aFax to your email (which is a super-simple one-click process), they turn your email into a fax and deliver it to the recipient's fax machine.

So rather than using your own telephone landline, you're using the landlines at aFax instead. At the other end, your fax arrives and prints out on the recipient's fax machine just like an ordinary fax. They'll never know that the fax began as an email.

How to Send Your First Email Fax

Sending an email fax only takes a few minutes. It's as simple as sending an ordinary email, and you can send your first few email faxes for free. The following four steps will show you how.

Connect With an Email-to-Fax Service

First, choose an email fax service to use. We recommend aFax. With aFax, you connect your Gmail account with one click.

Compose a New Email

Go into your email and compose a new email in the normal fashion. Write a subject line and also write some email content if you like. This will be printed on the cover letter of your fax when it's delivered.

Attach Your Document

Next, attach the document you wish to send as a fax. With aFax, you can deliver a document of up to five pages for free.

Enter Your Recipient's Fax Number

In the “TO” box of your email, you need to enter your recipient's fax number. Then add a special suffix to that number which turns it into an email address.

For aFax, this suffix is @onafax.com. So if your recipient's fax number is 2125679283, you'll be sending the fax either to 2125679283@onafax.com or 2125679283@rcfax.com.

Send Your Fax

When you hit “send,” your email will instantly be converted into analog fax format and delivered to your recipient's fax machine. It's that simple.

Why Fax Is Still Used Today

Because fax uses analog telephone lines, it has a lot of perceived security advantages over sending files with unencrypted email. Businesses in the finance, health, and legal industries still often use fax for contracts and documents with sensitive data.

Government organizations also insist on fax much of the time, and fax is still very popular in some countries like Germany and Japan. But there's no need for this to be an inconvenience. If you're doing business with someone who requests a fax, you can happily agree, and send it from your email.

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