How to Fax with Google Voice

Author: Richard Haase

What is Google Voice Fax?

Google Voice fax is a method to send and receive faxes using your current Google Voice number.  This way you can be free from using a fax machine and speed up your communications.  

Google Voice is a service that lets you make and receive calls over your Internet connection. Registering for a new account grants you a unique Google Voice fax number. But this VOIP number only works for calls.  If we want fax with a Google Voice number, we need to port it to a fax service, which uses FOIP (Fax Over IP) technology.

Setting Up a Google Voice Fax Number

If you’ve had a Google Voice number for years and want to use it as a dedicated fax line, you can unlock it and port it to the online fax service of your preference.

Here's how to unlock and port a Google Voice fax number:

1. Unlocking Your Google Voice Number

Before porting your Google Voice number, you need to unlock it from Google Voice's page.

To unlock your Google Voice number follow these steps:

1. Head over to www.google.com/voice/unlock and log into your Google Voice account.
2. Pick the number you want to transfer to your online fax provider from the drop-down list and unlock it. If you only have one number click below it, where it says “Unlock my number”.
3. Click Continue.
4. Now you need to sign into Google Wallet and pay for the transfer of the document. At the time of writing, it costs $3 to begin the unlock process.

That’s it, once you’ve paid the small fee your Google Voice number will be ready to be ported to your fax service.

The fax number porting process transfer the handling of the Google Voice number to a new provider. It may take some days to complete because your number needs to be spread on the Internet, but after that it will be ready to receive fax with yout Google Voice number automatically.

Keep in mind that after finishing the transfer your former Google Voice number you won’t be able to use it for voice calls, it will only serve to send and receive fax transmissions.

2.  Requesting Your Google Voice number porting

Now comes the second part, requesting the transfer process of your Google Voice number your fax provider.

Luckily, most services handle all the porting process. You just have to contact them via email and let them know that you’ll be using your Google Voice number to receive faxes. As soon as they receive the request they will begin moving the number to let you use it as soon as possible.

It’s important to choose a reputable online fax provider to handle the Google Voice fax number porting. They will make the porting process much faster and will give you with a temporary fax number that you can use in the meantime to avoid missing faxes. This is not because there’s an interruption of your service, but because online fax numbers need to propagate across the Internet.

How to Send a Fax with Google Voice

Once your number is ported and you can fax with Google Voice, you can use it linked to your Gmail acccount to send and receive faxes.

To send fax with Google Voice:

1. Open your Gmail account and click on "Compose"
2. Enter the desired recipient's number on the TO field like this: faxnumber@efax.com (or any other service of your choice)
   
3. Type any additional text you want to appear as cover on the Subject or Body fields.
   
4. Attach to the email the document or files you want to fax.
   
5. Make sure all the information is correct and click on the blue Send button.
   
6. Wait for the confirmation email to arrive.
   

Note that the email address' domain changes depending on the service you are using.

How to Receive Fax With Google Voice

To receive faxes with your Google Voice number you just need to setup your online fax account, and they will arrive automatically to your Gmail inbox. They will be forwarded to your email as a PDF file, and you can find them in your service's members area as well. Some services have the option of forwarding incoming fax to up to 5 different email destinations, this could come quite handy if you work as part of a team.

Depending on your provider, you can also access incoming Google Voice fax using your smartphone.  Not all services have apps, so check that up before signing up with one of them.

Why Fax with Google Voice?

Use your existing number.

There’s no need of having multiple numbers when you already have the one supplied by Google Voice, just keep using the same number and forget about having to update your contacts. People sending fax to your Google Voice number won’t notice a difference.

No need for additional equipment. 

Google Voice faxing doesn’t need a fax machine or supplies. You can fax from Google Voice using just your computer or phone and an Internet connection.

Integration with other Google services.

You can integrate Google Voice fax with other Google applications. The most clear example of this is that you can send faxes through a Gmail account, but you can also fax straight from your Google Docs composing window, or by pulling documents to fax over Google Drive.

It’s paperless.

Why print a document when you can just read it on your computer or cell-phone screen? Incoming Google Voice faxes arrive as PDF, a type of format that can be read on pretty much any computer, mobile phone or tablet. You retain 100% control over the documents you want to have in physical form. At the same time you can fax a PDF to a fax machine directly without having to print the document first.