Outlook does almost everything an office needs except the one thing some offices still demand: a fax. There is no fax button in the classic Outlook, the new Outlook, or Outlook on the web. When people search how to send a fax from Outlook, they usually have a document sitting in an email and a fax number on a form, and they need the two to meet.

This guide covers the fastest way to do that without installing anything, what email-to-fax and Outlook add-ins actually require, and why Office's old Internet Fax option is a dead end on most modern PCs.

  • The two-minute route: save as PDF → upload in a browser
  • Faxing the email itself, not just its attachment
  • Email-to-fax and add-ins, and who they genuinely suit

Table of Contents

Why Outlook has no fax button

Email travels over the internet as data. A fax is an image of a page encoded as audio tones and sent down a telephone line to a machine that decodes it. Nothing in Outlook speaks the fax protocol or connects to a phone line, so something in between always has to do that part.

That in-between is a fax service. Whether you email it, upload to it, or use an add-in, the service dials the recipient's number and transmits the pages. The recipient sees an ordinary fax arrive on ordinary equipment. The only real choice is how you hand the service your document — and for a one-off fax, the simplest hand-off is a PDF in a browser tab.

Step 1: Get a PDF out of Outlook

There are two situations, and they need slightly different steps.

The document is an attachment

If someone emailed you a form or a signed contract as a PDF, you just need it on your computer.

  • New Outlook and Outlook on the web: click the arrow next to the attachment and choose Download.
  • Classic Outlook for Windows: click the arrow next to the attachment and choose Save As, then pick a folder.
  • Outlook for Mac: click the attachment's arrow or hover over it and choose to download or save it.

If the attachment is a Word document rather than a PDF, convert it first — open it in Word and save a copy as PDF. Our guide to faxing a Word document has the exact menus for Windows, Mac, and Word for the web.

You need to fax the email itself

Sometimes the content is the message body: a booking confirmation, a letter, an approval. Outlook cannot save a message directly as a PDF from its Save As menu, but every version can print to PDF.

  • Windows (classic, new Outlook, or Outlook on the web): open the message, choose Print, and select Microsoft Print to PDF as the printer. Microsoft's own guidance uses this route; in the new Outlook and on the web, Print sits under the message's More actions (…) menu.
  • Mac: choose Print, then use the PDF menu at the bottom of the print dialog and choose Save as PDF.

Check the result before you send it. Long email threads print every quoted reply, and a two-line approval can turn into a nine-page PDF of signatures and disclaimers. Delete what you do not need, or print just the message you care about.

Step 2: Send it from your browser

  1. Open a fax service in Edge, Chrome, or Safari — on Faxio that is faxio.app/send.
  2. Drag the PDF onto the upload area. Faxio accepts PDFs only, and you can add several files; they go out as one fax.
  3. Choose the country and type the fax number. For the US and Canada, a normal 10-digit number.
  4. Add a subject if the recipient needs a cover page. On a shared machine in a clinic or a lender's office, a cover page saying who the fax is for saves it from sitting in a pile.
  5. Send, and watch the status move from Sending to Delivered.

There is no account to create and no add-in to install, which matters on a work laptop where IT controls what runs in Outlook. A short fax usually transmits in about a minute; older receiving machines are slower.

Email-to-fax and Outlook add-ins

If you fax every day and live in Outlook, there are honest reasons to set up something more integrated.

Email-to-fax turns a fax service into an email address. You compose a normal message in Outlook, address it to the fax number at the service's domain — typically in the form [email protected] — attach the document, and send. The service transmits it and emails you a confirmation. It works from any mail client, so it works from every version of Outlook.

Outlook add-ins from established fax providers such as eFax, RingCentral, and others go a step further, adding a fax option inside Outlook itself. They are built for business accounts and usually come with a monthly plan.

Both have the same two catches:

  • Setup comes first. You cannot email-to-fax a service you have no account with, so neither helps when you need a fax out in the next ten minutes.
  • They are usually subscription features. Email-to-fax and add-ins are typically bundled into monthly plans rather than sold per fax.

For a business sending dozens of faxes a week from a desktop, that trade is worth it. For a single fax to a bank, an insurer, or a government office, it is more setup than the fax itself. Our eFax comparison covers the trade-off in more detail.

What about Office's Internet Fax?

Microsoft's documentation still describes sending files as an "Internet Fax" from Office apps. The fine print is the problem: it depends on the Windows Fax driver or Windows Fax and Scan being installed, and Microsoft notes that if Windows Fax and Scan is not available in your edition of Windows, the feature is not supported. On top of that you need a fax provider configured to receive the job.

In practice, Windows Fax and Scan is not pre-installed on Windows 11, it was built around fax modems and analogue phone lines that modern PCs and offices no longer have, and the new Outlook does not offer the classic integration at all. Our Windows fax guide walks through what the built-in route still requires, for the rare machine that has the hardware.

What it costs

Outlook adds nothing to the bill — you are paying the fax service. Pay-per-fax pricing runs roughly $2 to $5 per fax.

Faxio is $2.99 for a single fax of up to 10 pages, with no subscription, no account, and no card kept on file. If the transmission fails, the credit returns automatically, so a busy line on the other end costs you nothing. Credits are cheaper in bundles — $2.00 each in a pack of 5, $1.67 in a pack of 15 — and there is an optional $14.99/month unlimited plan for people who fax weekly.

If your fax keeps failing on the recipient's side, why faxes don't go through explains the usual causes. If the document came in through Gmail rather than Outlook, the steps are nearly identical — see faxing from Gmail.

Faxing from Outlook is a PDF and a browser tab: download the attachment or print the email to PDF, upload it, and type the number. Integrations make sense at volume; for everything else, they are the optional part.

Send a fax from your Outlook attachment →

Frequently asked questions

Can I send a fax directly from Outlook?

Not natively. Outlook has no fax feature of its own. You can use a fax service's email-to-fax address if you have an account with one, or save the attachment as a PDF and upload it to a browser-based fax service.

How do I fax an email from Outlook?

Open the email, choose Print, and select Microsoft Print to PDF on Windows (or Save as PDF on a Mac). That turns the message into a PDF, which you then upload to an online fax service along with the recipient's fax number.

What happened to Send as Internet Fax in Office?

Office's Internet Fax option still appears in Microsoft's documentation, but it depends on the Windows Fax driver or Windows Fax and Scan being installed and on a fax provider being configured. On most current Windows 11 machines and in the new Outlook it is not a practical route.

Does email-to-fax work with Outlook?

Yes. Email-to-fax works from any mail client, including Outlook, because you are just sending an email to an address like [email protected]. It requires an account with that service first, and it is usually part of a paid plan.

How much does it cost to fax from Outlook?

Outlook itself adds no cost; you pay the fax service. Pay-per-fax services generally charge $2 to $5 per fax. Faxio is $2.99 for a single fax of up to 10 pages, with no subscription and the credit returned automatically if the transmission fails.

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