Many users are unaware how easy it is to send a fax from an iPhone. Follow these simple steps using a popular iPhone fax app to perform this occasionally necessary task.
We’ve likely all been there: You need to send a quick document to someone insisting the information arrive via fax, yet you no longer have access to a fax machine, and you may not want the complexity of an efax app. Thankfully, it’s easy to send a fax using just an iPhone. No fax machine or fax number is needed. Here’s how.
SEE: BYOD Approval Form (TechRepublic Premium)
First, download Municorn’s free Fax from iPhone app, as shown in Figure A. The program has over 228,000 ratings, the majority of which are five-star reviews.
Figure A
Next, choose your subscription. The iPhone fax app is free, but you must pay to actually fax a file.
While the app previously permitted purchasing credits, as is proving true for so many software products, a subscription is now required. Three options exist. A one-week subscription is $9.99, which you can cancel at any time. A month-long commitment is $24.99. Those frequently sending iPhone faxes can also select a yearly option for $99.99. Actual payments are processed using your Apple iTunes account.
To purchase a subscription, tap the fax app’s Info tab found on the bottom right corner. When the info page opens, press the blue Buy Subscription button, as shown in Figure B.
Figure B
Unfortunately, pricing is not as economical as in the past. Previously faxing a single page ran about 10 credits. Any previously purchased credits will remain until they’re used. Because 250 credits previously cost $9.99, the developer must be guessing customers are willing to pay about ten bucks to send a few iPhone faxes a month, While that’s still not a bad deal, if you’re sending faxes more often than a couple times a week, an actual fax machine might prove a better option.
In the event you only occasionally send iPhone faxes, the subscription model should still work well, though. Just remember to cancel the plan when you no longer need the fax service.
While more expensive than mailing the same document, iPhone faxing is much easier than having to find an envelope, address the envelope, purchase a stamp, put the stamp on the envelope, find a mailbox, mail the envelope and then wait two or three days for the information to actually arrive. Although faxing has largely been replaced by email, secure online file-sharing and encrypted email, faxing certainly retains a role for many purposes.
To proceed, specify the document to fax by tapping the blue Add Image or Document button. Once pressed, the New Fax window will appear, as shown in Figure C.
Figure C
There are several ways to locate or scan the document you need to fax. The app permits scanning the document, selecting a file for faxing from another application and locating the file within your iCloud account. You can also use Notes to scan the document page or pages you need to send, then transfer the note to iCloud by saving the note to Files and selecting iCloud.
Alternatively, many apps (such as Microsoft Word and Apple Pages) permit opening the file you wish to fax and selecting the Send a Copy or Share option to select sending the file with another app, from where you can choose Fax from iPhone. Yet still another option is to locate the file you wish to fax using the iPhone’s Files app, selecting the compatible file in question and choosing the Fax app option.
Once you’re ready to send the iPhone fax, enter the fax number to which the fax should be sent within the Send To field. Then, tap the blue Send button. Once the fax completes, confirmation will appear within the Sent Faxes tab.
The Fax from iPhone app permits faxing from an iPhone in more than 90 countries. The app also allows users to combine multiple documents into a single fax message, preview faxes before they are sent and send a wide range of files, (including PDFs, Word documents, JPGs and more) and using a variety of document sources (including Box, Dropbox, iCloud and Google Drive).
While you likely don’t want to use the app to scan and send faxes for numerous pages, at least if that file isn’t already scanned, the app is an easy and low-cost method of forwarding those occasional agreements and files that I seem to encounter a half-dozen times a year and for which faxing from an iPhone excels.
