Nowadays, when you hear someone talk about faxing, there’s a decent chance it’s the punchline to a groan-inducing dad joke. (Not that I would ever be guilty of such silliness, of course. I stick strictly to the fax.)
And yet, here in the futuristic-feeling time of 2025, we all find ourselves facing the very occasional and impossibly baffling need to send something somewhere specifically by fax. Try as you might, sometimes, you just can’t avoid it. (One might even say those are just the fax of life!)
Faxing is antiquated technology through and through, but for whatever reason, we as a society don’t quite seem ready to shed it entirely—despite the fact that we’ve got approximately 4.3 gablillion better ways to transmit documents, be it via messaging, email, or secure cloud sharing. Heck, you could even ask Gemini or ChatGPT to summon a virtual carrier pigeon and see what sort of nonsense they cough up in response.
When the specific request for a fax slaps you back to reality, though, you’ve got no choice but to figure out some way to make it happen. You certainly won’t find any easy options within the apps Google gives you as part of its Workspace productivity suite.
But good golly, have I got just the tool for you to tuck away in your virtual toolbox for the next time that need arises.
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Free fax, no tax
All right—we’ll make this fax and furious:
➜ The next time you find yourself facing the hilarious but unavoidable demand to send something via fax, an app called HP Smart is the tool you need.
HP Smart is a completely free app that looks like a run-of-the-mill interface for futzing around with an HP-made printer. And it is that, on the surface—but beneath that uninspiring outer layer is a hidden gem of a feature that anyone can take advantage of, whether you have a physical printer in front of you or not.
⌚ It’ll take you about two minutes to figure out and get running the first time, then all of 20 seconds to use after that.
✅ You just open up the app on whatever type of device you’re using—phone, computer, carrier pigeon, you name it—and then:
- Make your way through the initial setup screens.
- The app will ask you to sign in with an HP account. Fret not, though, for you can create one right then and there, on the spot, for free.
- On the app’s main screen, find the “Mobile Fax” option.
- If you don’t see that right away—which I didn’t, the first time I opened the app on Android—look for an option to “Personalize Tiles” at the bottom of the screen. You should then be able to activate the toggle next to “Mobile Fax,” which’ll then cause the missing option to appear.
- Click or tap that option (or peck it, in the case of a carrier pigeon), then tap the command to compose a new fax.
And hey, how ’bout that? There, in front of your fax-addled face-beak, will be a simple screen for specifying your lucky recipient and selecting exactly what files you want to transmit.
You can select an existing file or photo, if you have a digital version already ready, or you can use the app’s built-in camera option to capture a virtual copy of a physical document right then and there. You can even add in your own custom cover page, if you’re really feelin’ wild.
And that’s pretty much it! Hit that Send Fax button, then just sit back and watch as HP Smart works its retro-tech transforming magic.
Within a matter of moments, you’ll see confirmation that your fax has been delivered, as a physical sheet of paper somewhere in the real world—all for the ever-reasonable price of precisely $0.
The app lets you send faxes to a sprawling list of countries that isn’t limited only to the U.S. It’s specifically for sending faxes, though; if you for some reason need to receive a fax, please go get your head examined.
Sorry. Them’s just the fax—and nothin’ but the fax.
- HP Smart is available as a native app for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac.
- It is completely free to use for now, with no caveats or catches and no credit cards required. Officially, HP says it’s part of an ongoing “trial,” but the trial has been running for months with no sign of an imminent end (and if HP does ever decide to start charging for the service, it says it’ll give 30 days’ notice before making any such shift).
- HP promises that faxes sent through its service are confidential, secure, and even compliant with the strict U.S. HIPAA privacy regulations.
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