How To Send A Fax From Email

a representation of email to fax

You might think that faxing had its heyday back before people used to rent VHS tapes from BlockBuster. But you’d be wrong – the industry is still growing today, and is expected to double by 2029. There are lots of reasons for this – like it’s high security levels, the healthcare industry, and the fact that faxing is still legally much stronger than e-signing documents or sending emails. Faxing isn’t going anywhere, so the chances are you’re going to need to know how to fax for a long time.

Luckily, whilst faxing hasn’t gone away, it has changed and evolved, and there are now a lot more ways to send a fax than by feeding all of your documents, one by one, into a giant fax machine connected to a phone line, and then waiting 15 minutes to get confirmation that it’s sent. One of these ways is fax from email which we will explore in this article.

How An Average Person Can Send A Fax In 2025

The days of everyone keeping bulky fax machines in their homes are long gone, and the chances are you may not have even seen a fax machine in years. But here’s the thing – you have, you probably see one every day. This is because thanks to online fax services, you can now receive and send faxes from your phone, or your computer – with apps or by using email. Let’s talk about the 3 main ways people do their faxing today:

  1. Faxing apps. You can turn your phone into a fax machine by downloading one of the many different faxing apps which are now available. You can use your phone’s camera to scan documents, or upload them from your phone or from cloud storage. There are great options for all major phone brands, and they’re much lower cost than buying a fax machine.
  2. Email to fax. We might not be used to faxing with a fax machine anymore, but most of us still use email every day. An email to fax service allows you to send a fax as though it’s an email – so you can use these services to log into your regular email account, prepare a message, attach documents which you want to send as fax pages, and send a fax from the convenience of your every day email service. There are lots of secure options to do this that are much cheaper than using a fax machine, like EveryFax.
  3. Fax machines. Of course, you could always swim against the current and buy a traditional fax machine, if you really want the old school experience. You may even be able to use one at work if you work in an office – this could be a good option. But otherwise, we wouldn’t recommend this – it’s the least convenient, the slowest, and usually the most expensive option.

Email To Fax – Complete Guide

There are some pretty great features of fax apps, and from using email to fax services. Let’s focus on email faxing for now – 99% of people reading this will already have an email address that they use quite regularly, so if there’s a way to send a fax the exact same way, many would prefer this option.

Email faxing does the exact same thing that a physical fax machine does – but using your email service instead. This means you get your own fax number, you get to send and receive faxes, you can add fax pages and a cover page, and send to any fax number. There are also a few bonus things that a lot of traditional fax machines can’t do – like store all your faxes and give you backup storage in case you lose your device, or view all your sent faxes and delivery receipts.

The key differences from sending an email are:

  • You need to make sure you have created the right fax cover sheet – you can usually do this in the body of the email, and use the attachments as the fax pages. Each service provider will tell you how to do this.
  • Every fax page needs to be included as an attachment. Email to fax services support a wide variety of digital file formats.
  • You need to type the recipient’s fax number into the ‘To’ section of the email, instead of their email address. For example, if you’re using an email to fax service like EveryFax, you’d type something like the following: [email protected].

It’s that simple! Once you hit send, the email to fax service will do the rest – by converting your attachments into a fax message, and sending the contents to the fax number you’ve dialled in.

How To Use An Fax From Email Service – Step By Step

The best thing about email to fax services is that if you’re already comfortable using email, you know exactly how to do it already! You won’t need to learn any new app or software. What you will need to do is find a reliable fax service which lets you send email faxes. Here’s a step by step guide, using our own email to fax platform – EveryFax:

  1. Sign up to an email to fax service provider. Once you go to their website and sign up, you’ll be able to choose your own fax number, and check their own specific instructions to get started.
  2. Create your email to fax message. You can open a new message to send on your email account, and type in the fax number as instructed by your service provider. It’s usually something like [email protected], depending on your provider.
  3. Add your fax documents. You’ll need your documents scanned or saved to your computer / cloud storage, and then you can add them as attachments to the email – this will turn them into fax pages. Check the order of the pages if it needs to be in a certain sequence. You can then include a cover sheet.
  4. Send the email and wait for confirmation. Once you hit send, the email to fax service will convert your email into a fully compliant fax message, and transfer it to the fax number you typed in. This might take a few minutes – if you need proof that it has sent, you can wait a few minutes for delivery confirmation. If you’re using a service like EveryFax, then they will email you to confirm as soon as the fax message has been delivered.
  5. Receive faxes the same way as emails. When you sign up to an email to fax service, the faxes you receive on your personal fax number will come through to your email. With EveryFax, you can even port your current fax number to transfer it to your email service, in case you already own a fax machine and want to go digital.

The Best Email To Fax Services

Online fax services don’t always offer email to fax services, but there are still lots that do. If you’re confused on where to start, here are a few good options. Note that we’re only going to show you services which are rated as HIPAA compliant, and use end-to-end encryption – this means your faxes are fully protected, and much more secure than the average email:

  • EveryFax. Municorn’s EveryFax is a great all-around option which offers personal plans, team plans and business plans – their unlimited faxing subscriptions are especially helpful if you plan on sending lots of faxes. They integrate helpful features like signing documents, and have a great support team.
  • RingCentral. RingCentral is a powerhouse when it comes to faxing, and comes packed with more technical features and support than almost any other. Their email to fax service includes features like scheduling, spam blocking, sending to up to 50 recipients, and integrates with programs like Outlook, Chrome, and Salesforce. This is probably the best option for business faxing, but it’s also more expensive, and might not be the best option for your individual faxing needs.
  • Fax.Plus. Fax.Plus is a popular online fax solution and app which includes email to fax in its most basic subscription package. Fax.Plus is another great option for big businesses, but also has some good individual price plans to suit most faxers. One thing we love about Fax.Plus is that you can use a desktop app, or the email to fax option – so it keeps your options open. A downside is that none of their plans currently offer unlimited faxing – so you’ll always have a limit for your pages, before you have to start paying extra.

Any of these are good options if you don’t know where to start – alternatively you can also do your own research, there are plenty of online fax services out there to choose from.

Should I Use Email To Fax Services? Pros and Cons.

If you need to send and receive faxes, you might be wondering if email to fax is the best option for you, rather than maybe using a mobile app, or a fax machine. Let’s go over some advantages and disadvantages of using this service.

Advantages

  • There’s no learning required. Some people get confused by fax machines if they’ve never used one before. Email to fax services are a good way of taking an existing technology that most people know how to use, and making it work in a different way. No need for a fax machine, no need for a new app.
  • It’s cross-platform. Email to fax services work across computers, mobiles, and all sorts of softwares like cloud storage, which can link with email accounts. Email is very versatile, and most other people also use it.
  • It keeps a good record of your faxes. You’ll receive email confirmations of your sent faxes, and your received faxes will be stored and linked to your email account – which can be backed up if you lose your device.

Disadvantages

  • It’s an extra step of vulnerability. Think about this – if you just send a regular fax using a fax machine or a fax app, then there’s only one step. However, if you send a fax as an email, you first send an email to the fax service provider, who then convert it and send a fax to the number of your recipient. That’s an extra step, and having your fax data kept in your email server also makes email faxing slightly more vulnerable to hackers, and to data breaches.
  • Slightly less convenient than fax apps. Fax apps like Municorn’s Fax App allow users to use their phone cameras to scan and instantly send documents as a fax. You could also upload documents from your text messages, from Whatsapp, or lots of other services that don’t link to email. Using a fax app is usually slightly easier for this reason, and it’s more portable.
  • Pricing plans. Services which offer email to fax are usually from companies like RingCentral, who offer all sorts of other communications products. This is good value if you are buying lots more products for your business, but as an individual user, it can be hard to get the same value that a fax app can provide, which are more typically aimed at private users.

For the reasons listed above, if we had to make a one-sentence recommendation for what you should use, it’d be this: You should probably use email-to-fax for running a business, but use a fax app for personal use.

Is Email To Fax Better Than Regular Email?

You might be thinking “why not just send an email?”. There’s a number of reasons why you will often want to specifically send an email fax instead of an email. For example, online fax services are usually more secured because they have to comply with HIPAA guidelines, unlike regular email services. This means you get end-to-end encryption as standard, and HIPAA Privacy Rule policies keep your data secure. This is why healthcare and insurance companies will usually ask you to fax documents instead of emailing them, even in 2025!

Also – faxes are a lot more legally secure and private than emails. Did you know that emails over 180 days old are considered legally abandoned, can be seized by the US government with no legal justification? There are also huge punishments for wiretapping, meaning criminals will get in much more trouble for intercepting a fax than an email.

Faxes carry more authority than electronic signatures in a lot of ways, for example, here are a few things you can only do by signing and faxing a document instead of electronically signing it:

  • Wills and trusts
  • Court orders
  • Cancelling utility services
  • Cancelling insurance policies

These are just a few of the reasons you may want to use email to fax instead of regular email!

Get Started Today

If you want to start using your email account to send faxes, we highly recommend it, however we’d also recommend using a fax app for slightly more convenience and flexibility.

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