Free Inbound Faxing
I occasionally need to receive an inbound fax, but I don't own a fax machine. Going to Kinko's or the local drugstore to pick up a fax is a nuisance, and nothing is private there. Is there some way to get my faxes online, but still have a real phone number that people can use to send faxes to me? Oh, and free is nice... |
Receive a Fax for Free
Yes, you can get inbound faxes delivered to you electronically, for free. There are several ways to get a free fax number that will forward incoming faxes to you via email or web, and the senders will never know you don't have a real fax machine. Fax machines are so 1990... free online faxing (both inbound and outbound) is the way the cool kids do it now. :-)
My favorite free inbound fax service is Faxaway. This company has been in business since 1995 and despite their "Web 0.9" website, the service is rock solid. Sign up for a free Faxaway account and it will allow you to receive faxes and voicemails for free via your email account.
Here's how it works: Faxaway gives you a real fax number that you can give to anyone who wants to send a fax to you. When that fax number receives an inbound fax, Faxaway answers the call, saves the fax as a TIF image, and forwards it on to your email address. I don't care if they do it with computers, pigeons or monkeys -- but it works great. The only downside is that you probably won't get a local fax number. Mine is in a Seattle area code, and I'm in New York, but that's never been a problem for me.
eFax is another well known free fax service online. They offer three different account types. The eFax FREE account, also referred to as their Limited Account, will provide you with a non-local fax line and up to 20 incoming faxes. But be aware that they call it "Limited" for a good reason. If you receive more than 20 fax pages in any thirty day period, eFax may terminate or suspend your account if you do not upgrade to a paid subscription service. The eFaxPro package will let you receive 200 faxes a month and will allow you to send faxes from your email for less than $20 per month. The eFaxPlus program is a few dollars cheaper per month and will let you receive up to 130 faxes per month, as well as send faxes through your email account. You can also bring an existing number to eFax, if you want to junk our dinosaur fax machine and go digital.
FaxBetter offers a free toll free fax number to anyone. Faxes are received in your email inbox as a PDF attachment. That's pretty standard, but what separates FaxBetter is that all faxes received are OCRed. This means the actual text from the fax is extracted by Optical Character Recognition and is then embedded into the body of the email, thus making the email searchable in your email program (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.). The free service is limited to 50 incoming pages per month, and you have to receive a fax every 7 days to keep your free toll free fax number.
Benefits of Using a Free Fax to Email Service
Online based fax services offer users several advantages. First of all you don't have to waste valuable desk space on a bulky fax machine. You don't have to spend money on a fax machine that will most likely be outdated within a year or two. Online based fax services also allow you to send and receive faxes anywhere you have access to your email account and a computer. This means that you can retrieve a fax while at your office, while at a client's office or while you are out of town. Finally, online fax services are environmentally more friendly than a traditional fax machine, because there's no paper waste, no toner, and no obsolete machine to ultimately junk or recycle.
In addition to Faxaway, eFax and FaxBetter, there are other fax-to-email services, some of which offer free trials. I can't personally recommend any of those because I have not used them. If you've found one that you like, feel free to post a comment below...
|
|
Share this article with friends! |
|
Posted by Bob Rankin on 11 Jul 2008
| Need More Help? Try the AskBobRankin Updates Newsletter. It's Free! |
 |
Prev Article: External Hard Drive Security |
The Top Twenty |
Next Article: Wireless Printers |
 |
|
Link to this article from your site or blog. Just copy and paste from this box: |
There's more reader feedback... See all 37 comments for this article.
Post your Comments, Questions or Suggestions
Free Tech Support -- Ask Bob Rankin
Subscribe to AskBobRankin Updates: Free Newsletter |
||
|
Copyright © 2005
- Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy -- See my profile on Google. |
||
Article information: AskBobRankin -- Free Inbound Faxing (Posted: 11 Jul 2008)
Source: http://askbobrankin.com/free_inbound_faxing.html
Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved
Free
Most recent comments on "Free Inbound Faxing"
(See all 37 comments for this article.)Posted by:
Claud
10 Dec 2009
I have been using eFax inbound fax for years. It has been free. However, I don't receive many faxes. I just got a new computer and their software is not compatible with Vista 64 bit. I cannot find a free inbound fax service for the life of me. I do use gotfreefax.com to fax outbound. You get up to 2 - 3page faxes per day. there are other services that offer this also, so if you have more than that look for them on the internet.
Posted by:
Mike
30 Jan 2010
faxdigits.com is no longer a valid website
Posted by:
dona
30 Jan 2010
I need a local fax number for inbound faxing. I don't want to pay long distance when I fax myself files which is often. Are there any free fax services that provide local numbers?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Not that I know of... you could always move to the area where your free fax number is assigned. :-)
Posted by:
Fran
28 Feb 2010
There is a prepayment of $10.00 (U.S.) when you sign up for Faxaway. When you sign up with a credit card, your card is charged the $10.00 upon your account activation. Each time you send a fax we subtract the cost of that fax from this prepayment. When your balance is depleted, we “recharge” your account by charging another prepayment to your card. If you send a broadcast fax that exceeds your account balance, we will charge that amount to your card.
Posted by:
alice
02 Mar 2010
Axiatel is an online vendor of faxing services.
They sell in France,Italy,Spain,Belgium,UK,Canada ,Australia.
Axiatel fax to email service allows the user to send and receive its faxes converted into email attachments.
Offering customized package,the fax to email is really affordable (from £ 5.9/mo),there is no set up fee and you get a month entirely free with no obligation to purchase to try the product.
Posted by:
Doug
14 Aug 2010
Hey Bob, there are a ton of motivations for using free fax services. One of the greatest attributes in my mind is the mobility. In my work I live on the road with the ability to fax from my blackberry is truly amazing when closing deals, placing orders and alerting groups mid conversation.
Posted by:
Phil Cooper
20 Aug 2010
eFax has dropped their free fax receive-only service, although I don't know when. They now offer a 30-day free trial, but then one must sign up for one of their two rather pricey month-by-month or annual plans. To get the "free" service, one needs to supply credit card information. This has "scam" written all over it. I have a friend with one of the free accounts. It still works and she hasn't been hassled (yet) to convert to a full service fee based account; eFax may have grandfathered those old free accounts.
Posted by:
JT
24 Aug 2010
@Phil - I just signed up for the eFax free service. You can use the link Bob provided above or you can goto their SiteMap and click on eFax Free from the "Getting Started" section. Seems to work well - already received two faxes and I just signed up!
It does note in the terms and conditions that j2 (eFax parent company) will send you promo faxes but that they will not count against your 10 fax per month limit.
Posted by:
NR
22 Sep 2010
@JT - 10 faxes/mth is more than I need!! I went to the eFax site, entered SiteMap but there is no "Getting Started" section to click on eFax free. Any other suggestions Bob or anyone?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Just use the link I gave in the article. It takes you directly to the form to signup for the free service. Don't click on the "30-day free trial" links!
Posted by:
andy
12 Oct 2010
Hi Bob,
Great topic. It's so rare that I need this though, but when I do, it would be great to go free online.
I've been trying efax's free service, but along the lines of what Claud mentioned, I have Vista, and can't get the efax messenger to complete setup. Thus, although I've received faxes in my email, I can't open them. Regardless of where I choose to download the file, when I try to run the .exe file, I get the error message: "The specified path is too long: C:\Users\"myname"\MyDocuments\eFax Messenger 4.4"
Any thoughts?
Posted by:
Arbady
20 Nov 2010
Thanks!
Posted by:
Carol
05 Jan 2011
Thanks for the article. I signed up for FaxBetter's free service. I love the toll-free number and the ability to search e-mails when using a third-party e-mail service. The only caveat is that the site loads very slowly. But I only receive a couple of faxes a week, so it's not a problem.
Posted by:
jeff jackson
23 Feb 2011
Just a friendly update. Fawaway is no longer free. They ask for $10 upfront and then charge per fax. I didn't look at the fee structure because I'm looking for a free service. Thanks for the blog post. I like what you have to say. Keep on bloggin :)
Posted by:
henry
07 Mar 2011
efax free is no more.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Ummm, why do you say that? The offer is still on the eFax website, at the link I gave.
Posted by:
wayne
15 Mar 2011
I just signed up for efax... did not click Free Trial as previously mentioned... I followed the site map... but got the 30 free trial anyway. Looks like it works fine. Thanks for the info.
Posted by:
Rock
27 Mar 2011
To get the "free" service, one needs to supply credit card information. :(
Posted by:
ricardoRI
26 Jul 2011
I used eFax for several years, and hated it. Changed to Faxaway (I agree with the Web 0.9 interface) and have not had any problems.
Why do I hate eFax? When I signed up, it was FREE FOR LIFE. Lied. Disconnected my number without telling me because I had sent (and paid for) more than 20 fax pages in a month.
The big problem is that eFax is a proprietary system. (proprietary tiff that nothing else could read!) You have to have their reader to look at the faxes. If you are travelling, using a hotel's computer, you can't get to your fax. YOu can't intall program onto other peoples computer. They also "upgraded" their reader program from 300k to 8mg, or something like that, mostly to add crapware and advertising. If you have broadband, no problem. If travelling in less developed areas, this is a HUGE problem. Plus I got huge amount a spam from eFax. I used a throwaway email and could see tons (multiple per day) from them. Some were signed, most were not.
Faxaway works. Yeah they charge a buck a month now, still much cheaper than anyone else. Nothing to download, uses pdf for display.
Posted by:
Bruce
16 Jan 2012
Hi,
I've used MaxEmail for years and am extremely satisfied. Faxes come in an email as tif or PDF files.
MaxEmail will also take Voice messages & send them as awav file so it can be used as an answering machine as well.
Their Lite package is $25/year (ther is a one-time setup fee of $10) and includes 100 inbound pages monthly. Unused pages roll over and additional pages ar 5¢.
Just wanted to add it to the mix. It is not free, but cost less fro a year that a phone line does for a month.
Bruce
Posted by:
Waterlily
15 Apr 2012
After several attempts, it is virtually impossible to obtain a "FREE" eFax number without providing credit card info.
What exactly am I missing here?
Posted by:
John
03 May 2012
You forgot to mention that faxaway charges a $1.00/mo account maintenance fee. Not a lot, but not exactly free, especially for the very seldom inbound faxes I receive.
I have outbound fax capability, but have to plug in the phone line to receive inbound or send outbound faxes. I am looking for a free, 24/7 automatic way around having to have the fax machine plugged in all the time.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Actually, I did mention that. :-)