When you have to send an email to your contacts, Google’ Gmail provides the ability to send personal or business related information. Same is the case with online faxing. Google have maintained the constant upgradation of their services by bringing more features like Google Drive, Google Photos, Google Calendar along with both, document editing and their management.
In the earlier times, you can only send emails via your computer. The email accounts had limited storage which used to result in failed transmission of emails when inbox get full. In 2004, by launching its new web-based mail service, Gmail, it resolved all these problems.
As of today, while being on your computer, you can get connected to worldwide resources with few clicks. Gmail haven’t planned any service to send a fax directly from your inbox. Although, Google Voice provides an efficient communication solution but it lacks provision to send a fax and there are no future plans to add such service.
To take care of this issue, one can use a third party service which is known as email faxing which seamlessly gets integrates with Google and hence allows the user to send a fax from Gmail. Such services offer a virtual fax number and also converts all of the incoming and outgoing faxes via Gmail into a digital format which in turns remove the need of any faxing machine. This resulted in saving both money and time.
For Gmail fax, you don’t require extensive set ups, and you don’t have to purchase any sort of hardware or installing communication cables. By following this tutorial, you will be able to send faxes within few minutes which makes it easy and smooth transition to Gmail fax.
Gmail Fax for Free
Various faxing services like eFax and RingCentral provides you the ability to create a free account which also gives up to 30 days of free trial and access to these services. You get all of their features and hence, you can learn how to send a fax from Gmail. By this, you can use their services which help in testing them before deciding and finalizing any plan.
Another alternative is using various websites which allow you to send a limited amount of pages without any cost. While you can’t do this by using your Gmail account, you can still do this task of sending a free fax directly from the website.
In case you need more fax pages to be transmitted, then it comes with a price which is generally more expensive than opting for a monthly plan from these email-based fax service providers. But one thing that goes against these services is that it lacks a large set of security features which makes it quite a risky choice for sending confidential information.
Guide to Send Fax from Gmail
In this section, we will take your through the step-wise procedure to send faxes via Gmail. Being an easier process and similar to sending an email, it consists few modifications that are as mentioned below:
- In the “To” section, you have to enter the fax number, instead of putting receiver’s email address.
- All the documents which need to be fax by you, are attached to the email.
- In the Subject section, the cover page title is entered.
- The content part of the email is replaced by cover page message.
By following few easy steps, you can send a fax without opting for any monthly plan, and by using a trial account available for free. It will also allow you to understand and explore various features of the Gmail fax service. The procedure of sending fax is as follows:
STEP 1. Composing a New Message.
In order to start, you have to compose a new email by clicking the corresponding button.
STEP 2. Submitting Receiver’s Information
The subject part of the particular email will be the fax title.
If you are wondering about where to place receiver’s fax number, then all you have to do is to enter the number in the “To” section. For example, if you are using MyFax faxing service, then you have to place internet fax providers’ information after the fax number. In this example, it would look like the following:
12223334444@myfax.com, where, “1” is placed before the area code, which is followed by area code “222” and in the end with the fax number which is “333444”.
Step 3 – Attaching Required Documents
One of the best feature of online faxing is that you can easily attach and send a variety of documents of different formats.
You have to check with your provider to get information regarding which types of document formats you can use. Generally, these providers accept various formats, and you can also import documents from your online storage accounts like Google Drive and similar storage accounts.
Another salient feature of these faxing services is that you can attach various documents to your fax just like the way you attach any document to your email. You also get the ability to add a message for the cover page or cover sheet by simply adding it in the email body.
STEP 4 – Adding Message for Cover Page
Just like the way you write any message in your email, you can similarly place your text which has to be included on the cover page.
STEP 5 – Final Action
Now, you have to make sure of various things like the correct entry of fax number along with right documents attached with the fax. Then you need to click on the SEND button, and your Gmail fax is then automatically converted and delivered as a fax. This is how you can send free fax using Gmail fax service through the internet without any need of a faxing machine.
On completion of these steps, it will take few minutes for your fax to be delivered and in return, you will also get a confirmation message which will inform you about the status of your fax, whether it is successfully delivered or there is an error in the process. Most of these service provides automatically try to resend a fax multiple times if it fails to deliver on the first try. In case your fax isn’t delivered, and you receive any error message, then the email will provide you with the reasons for your fax’s failed delivery.
Summary
Even without any direct service provided by Google to send faxes, these online fax services are the best alternative and choice for those who wish to integrate faxing mechanism with their Gmail account. In case you wish to try these services before going for paid services, you can take full access to the services’ features up to 30 days.