How to Send and Receive a Fax Online [8 Easy Ways]

With the digital revolution at its peak, faxing seems a thing of the past. 

Although it’s more of a traditional technology, certain businesses still require faxing as the primary mode of document transmission. But the tedious handling of physical hardware and the slow transmission speed mandated its facelift for speedy document transfers over the internet.

The advent of online fax software brought together the best of both worlds – internet and fax – and simplified faxing. With this new technology, you no longer have to operate a fax machine to fax documents physically. Instead, you can easily learn how to send fax online using your computer or smartphone to fax – anywhere, anytime. 

While regular faxing uses a public telephone network, online faxing uses the worldwide internet protocol (IP) network to send and receive faxes. This makes the entire process effortless and cheap.

You need to register with a reliable online faxing service to fax online. It helps you handle documents digitally by converting emails into faxes and faxes into emails. 

When sending a fax, simply attach the digital version of the document to an email and send it to your recipient's fax machine number. The intended machine receives this as a regular fax signal for a printout. If the recipient is also an internet faxing service user, they can get digital fax via a service provider’s portal.

8 ways to fax online

Because it's useful for digitally handling documents, many companies consider online faxing the next big revolution. There are various ways to send faxes online. You can choose one of the following ways depending on your equipment and recipient.

1. Fax using email 

You can easily send online faxes through your email service provider using just your smartphone or computer. Attach the document, enter the fax number, and email it.

Email faxing requires a subscription to a reliable internet faxing service. Once subscribed, your service provider acts as the mediator for online faxing. The provider receives the documents over the internet and simply transmits them to the fax machine. 

Most service providers require the fax number and the applicable country and area code in your email’s “To” address. 

The email is converted into an online fax on the receiving end. You can easily access the faxed documents in your service provider’s portal. All you need to receive fax via email is an internet-connected device with an online fax service subscription. 

Internet faxing is one of the most convenient and fastest methods of document transmission. There are no extra charges other than your usual subscription and internet usage fee.

2. Fax via VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is another way to send internet faxes. VoIP is a telephone service that enables you to send or receive calls over an internet connection.

VoIP allows you to send a fax by dialing the recipient’s number and entering the corresponding code before their fax number. This code should be followed by your email address, which delivers all documents sent via VoIP to an inbox. 

Fax machines use analog signals to transmit data over phone lines. However, you use a VoIP gateway to convert the analog fax machine signal to internet-friendly data packets with VoIP. These messages are assembled and converted into analog signals that fax machines print out. This method isn’t so successful and can fail as the VoIP network isn’t optimized for fax signaling at the analog level.

3. Fax from a computer (Windows or macOS)

Online faxing services can help you send and receive faxes from your computer. Simply install your service provider’s web extension or software interface and use it for internet faxing. 

4. Fax via Google Docs

Most internet faxing services have the Google Fax feature. Using this function, you can integrate your online fax into various Google workspace services and send a fax directly from Google Docs or Google Sheets. 

For example, if you're a data-oriented business such as real-estate, Google Docs and Google Sheets can offer you ease of use and accessibility. When integrated with these Google services, you can transform your real-estate business using online fax.

Install the add-on specific to your online fax service provider in Google Workspace. This add-on helps you send and receive faxes using Google Docs or Google Sheets from your computer or smartphone.

5. Fax using Microsoft Office

Depending on your online faxing service provider, you can fax documents with Microsoft 365 applications. Fax MS Word, MS Excel, or MS Powerpoint files using the "email to fax" feature. Additionally, you can download your service provider's add-in for Microsoft applications. This way, you can fax a document, spreadsheet, or presentation directly via the add-in.

6. Fax from iOS devices

If your online faxing service provider has an iOS app, you can send faxes with your iOS device. Web apps on Macbooks and mobile apps such as Keynote, Pages, and Numbers on mobile iOS devices can also be used to send faxes.

7. Fax from Android devices

Like Apple devices, Android devices can have a fax service provider’s app on the Play Store. You can easily send and receive faxes on these devices with the app. All you have to do is download it, log into your account, and fax it.

8. Use an online faxing service

Many online faxing service providers offer fast, hassle-free online faxing services for a small fee. These service providers make it easy to send or receive documents around the globe through their user-friendly websites or apps.

The recipient’s fax machine or online faxing portal will receive your fax.

Various services offer professional transmission similar to conventional analog devices. They even overcome many disadvantages of traditional faxing, making online faxing the preferred route for new-age businesses.

Many of these providers have also released extensions for various browsers. This allows users to bypass the complicated steps of using their mailing service provider and their email-to-fax or fax-to-email capabilities to send and receive online faxes.

You can save on equipment and other related costs with online faxing services. It even helps you digitally archive the documents, not possible with offline faxing as it requires a scanner to scan the documents and save them.

Advantages of online faxing

Online faxing is beneficial in many ways. Introducing online fax in your business can help you streamline your business. From saving you time to giving you an effortless way of archiving the faxed files, it can be great in a lot more ways.

• Flexible. While you can still use fax machines for online faxing, you don’t need one. You can fax online with just a computer or a smartphone. This allows you more flexibility and saves you the hassle of installing an additional hardware resource and spending on maintaining it.
• No landline charges involved. You need a landline connection to transmit the analog signal over the telephone line with normal fax machines, and you’re billed for this. The cost varies a lot depending on where you're sending it. It can be higher for long-distance transfers. Online faxing helps you save on these costs. The rates are the same for long-distance or local – you only pay for your internet connection.
• Super safe and secure. Security is a major concern with traditional faxing. The phone lines sending the fax are likely to be intercepted, which could cause the faxed files to leak. In addition, anyone near the fax machine can see the faxed documents, which is not the case when receiving online faxes. With the encrypted, highly secure transmission and storage functions, online faxing is much more secure than you can imagine.
• Easy to store. Storage is always a challenge with paper-based document handling. You don’t need to store, manage, and sort shelves of archive documents to keep a record of your online fax transactions. When faxing online, it’s easy to save fax in a specific location on your system. This way, you can access anything, anytime.
• Cost-efficient. Faxing online helps save you a lot in the long run. Using an online fax service to send and receive faxes saves you equipment, maintenance, and standby costs. The only charges are those for the online fax subscription services, which are minimal compared to the other charges.
• No physical barriers. Fax machines can't be everywhere. You can only access them where they’re located. However, your location is never an obstacle when faxing online. You can fax to anyone on the go using any handheld device. Whether traveling somewhere where you don't have a fax machine, your online fax is there for you.
• Scalable. It can be tedious to fax for small businesses. Whether your small business is scaling up to an enterprise-level business or you're converting your home business into a small business, you don’t need to invest in and install additional fax machines. It’s sufficient to scale your subscription package with the online fax service provider and make your work easier.
• Eco-friendly. Without a physical fax machine, you can save money, space, time, and, most importantly, paper consumption. Going paperless has a significant positive impact on the environment. You can effectively share documents and save them digitally without printing them out on paper.
• E-signatures. You can also easily use the most popular digital signature functions when faxing online. Share legal documents and have them digitally signed with the help of a trusted digital signature provider. Easily do it all in one place.
• Legal compliance. Mailing documents is a conventional practice. However, there’s no legal provision for some mailed documents. In such cases, faxing is the preferred form of sharing. When faxing online, you can benefit from the electronic transmission and legal compliance.

Why choose online faxing?

With online faxing growing in popularity, it's no wonder that people are turning to this method. It gives you several advantages over the old, traditional method. You save on phone bills, enjoy easy storage, save on maintenance costs, stay on budget, and most importantly, are free from physical barriers that limit your access to documents.

A good online faxing service provider ensures that its website connection is extremely secure so that you can securely use its web interface. Additionally, secure cloud storage helps store sensitive documents and data safely.

Need to figure out how to store these documents after you've faxed them over? Check out everything you need to know about document storage.