Email Fax Services, Learn How You Can Fax Online!

As the name implies, thanks to email fax services you can send and receive faxes via your email account. Once you sign up with a free or paid account with one of the companies out there, you will link it to an existing email address.

To send faxes you will need to compose a new email message from your web email dashboard or an email program such as Microsoft Outlook. This is just like sending a common e-mail with just some minor differences, among them that the actual document will need to be attached to the message. Once you click send, your digital document will be encrypted and passed through the service's fax servers, where it will be converted to a file readable by all fax machines.

On the other hand, email fax services provide you with a local or toll-free online fax number that will aid you to receive faxes on your email. This virtual fax number will be available to you at no extra cost while you are under a plan. Incoming messages will arrive in just a matter of minutes, the sender won't notice any difference and you will save the money needed for a dedicated fax line. Here a similar conversion process takes place, but this time the fax document is converted on the fax servers into an Adobe Acrobat file (.pdf) for easy viewing and printing on the computer.

Alternatively, you can also send and receive faxes via the web dashboard of your preferred Internet fax service.

RingCentral is one of the leading companies of email fax services and the one I personally prefer after having tried out other alternatives. Their plans start at just $7.99 per month, allowing you to send/receive a total of 500 faxes each month. Among the features they offer we have:

- An internet fax number (local or toll free)
- Send and receive fax from email
- Security and encryption
- Integration with Microsoft Outlook
- Mobile fax alerts
- Fax apps to fax from iPhone, Android or Blackberry
- Web dashboard
- Detailed fax logs
- Ability to sign fax electronically
- 24/7 support

This is one of the easiest services to start out with. Signing up takes just a few minutes and you are ready to start faxing. This company is very helpful with their support system, especially when you don't know how things work at first. I've never had problems with RingCentral, neither people who have sent me any faxes.

I find the basic plan to be enough for my business needs, but there are also bigger plans for other types of customers (Fax 1000 and Fax 2500 plans).

They also have service and numbers to email fax in Canada and UK.

>> TRY RINGCENTRAL FREE NOW!

Do you want to fax from UK Ringcentral is also offering the same quality of service in the country providing United Kingdom users 0800, 0845 or Local Geo numbers to send and receive fax from any machine in the World.

RingCentral UK offers the same quality as the US service so you can rest assured you are getting top notch service.

>> TRY RINGCENTRAL UK FREE NOW!

I got the opportunity to review Nextiva's vFax a couple of months ago as I was writing a review for my fax site and I was very impressed by their offer. This company, although it has been around less time than other companies, has managed to rise to the top online fax alternatives thanks to an incredible offer and a matching service.

Nextiva's strongest point is the low monthly subscription fee. Subscription fees can go as low as $4.95 per month in the basic plan that includes 500 pages to send/receive each month. Not bad for small businesses!

Among the features offered by Nextiva we have:

- Ability to send and receive fax by email
- Ability to keep using a fax machine along with your service thanks to Nextiva's fax adapter ( a digital copy is stored)
- Integration with Microsoft Office
- Send & receive fax by cell phone
- No busy signals, or missed faxes
- Access fax Anywhere
- Ability to keep your current number

Nextiva vFax is an amazing service if you are looking for the best value and just local numbers. It doesn't include a toll-free number at the moment of signing up, and although it is compatible with cell phones through the email function, it doesn't offer specific apps for modern smartphones. If you can live without that, Nextiva is an excellent choice.

>> TRY NEXTIVA FREE NOW!

MyFax Protus is a respected company in the field of email faxing. With several years on the market, they offer online fax solutions for all types of users. I have tried the BEST VALUE plan, which allows you to send 100 pages and receive 200 pages during the month. Although I tried it with a MyFax free account, know that the basic plan costs $10 a month. MyFax.com features include:

- Sending and receiving fax over email
- Free local or toll-free number
- Fax from 5 different email addresses
- 24/7 customer support
- Fax from Microsoft application
- Works with smartphone (MyFax Blackberry and iPhone apps available)
- No need for software
- Fax storage for 1 year
- Free international fax to 4 countries
- Compatibility with multiple file types
- Customizable cover pages

As you can see, MyFax is a very complete faxing solution, and definitely one of the top alternatives you have to send and receive online fax. Among the features that stand out is the ability to send international fax free and the file compatibility. Other services charge you international fees, but with Myfax you should have no problem.

Using MyFax is very easy via the MyFax login dashboard and the faxes are well organized (not to mention the extra storage time, compared to other alternatives). If you are looking for a reliable faxing solution this is a great alternative.

>> TRY MYFAX FREE NOW!

Email fax services don't depend on any given type of computer or operating system to work. If you want to fax from Mac, you can use any of the services that I mentioned above.

This new fax technology takes place outside your computer, and inside powerful fax servers owned by big fax companies in the market. You don't have to worry about extra compatibility issues.

This used to be an issue when we had to rely on fax software (Mac users didn't have many options back then!), but not anymore.

Are you looking for the best priced email fax service? Although fax service offers are in average very affordable, there is a service that offers the most competitive price on the market: Nextiva vFax.

Nextiva has a monthly fee of $8.95, but the biggest saving comes from the annual package, which ends up costing you $4.95 per month. Here's a nice table that can help you compare it against two of the most popular fax services out there.

Nextiva is a great alternative, but you should keep in mind that it offers fewer features than other fax services. However, if you are just looking for basic fax features on a cheap email fax service, it won't let you down.



>> Try Nextiva FREE for 30 Days

Using email fax services is the easiest and simplest way to fax from a computer. Let's take a look at how you send fax via online fax services step by step:

1. Open your preferred email software or login to your email web dashboard.

2. Compose a new message.

3. In the TO field, enter the recipient's number like this: faxnumber@faxservice.com. So for example in the case of using Ringcentral Fax, this would be faxnumber@rcfax.com

4. Attach the document you wish to fax to the email message (check for file compatibility first fo rare file types)
In the Message field, type what will be the cover page and/or instructions that relate to the document.

5. Press send and just wait for the confirmation of delivery.

That's it! If you already knew how to send a common email, you already know 90% of the process of faxing from a computer.

The iPhone has become one of the most popular smartphones out there in the market, and as evolutions of the device keep coming, it seems that it will remain popular for a while. That's why some companies have created special apps that let you receive and send faxes though iPhone. These apps are free and ready to be downloaded for the marketplace, but need to work with an existing free or paid email fax account.
Let's take a look at the companies offering this cool feature.

Ringcentral Fax iPhone app. RingCentral offers a RingCentral Mobile function and an iPhone app. It lets you receive fax on your iPhone anywhere you are as long as you have an Internet connection. The app can be found at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ringcentral-mobile/id293305984?mt=8

eFax iPhone App. eFax lets you take care of all your faxing on the go thanks to its iPhone fax app. It lets you view faxes in your account, search for them, and even send out faxes from your device as long as you have the built-in camera. The app can be found at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/efax/id399922064?mt=8

MyFax iPhone app. Myfax also allows you to receive, compose and send fax over iPhone. Includes easy access to your contact book and your cover page styles. Unfortunately the app still has some bugs to fix. It can be found at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myfax/id380939947?mt=8

Learn more about other fax from cell phone alternatives.

A common question people have regarding email fax services is: "Can I send fax from Gmail?".

Although Gmail fax is not a service offered by Google we can send and receive fax via Gmail thanks to any of the email fax services I have mentioned in this page. You see, this is a web-based technology so your email address is only entered to know where the faxes should be sent. From there you don't need any special set up or other kind of complication.

I would recommend you to open a new Gmail address to send and receive fax to keep things organized. If this is much trouble for you, can alternatively use The "Labels" feature in Gmail to tag your faxes and find them easily.