Digitize your paper life with the best scanner apps for Android and iOS

Smartphones are the most versatile computers that we own. A lot of the work that we used to do with our laptops we can now do with a smartphone. One of the things that some of us need to do on a daily basis is to scan documents. Have you ever had to keep track of receipts or bank checks? Maybe you need to have copies of your passport, ID, or you need to put a PDF together with multiple pages. Well, you’re in luck! You don’t need a laptop to do any of that. You would be surprised at the amount of work and productivity that you can squeeze out of a smartphone with the right apps.

We put together a list of what we consider to be the best document scanner apps available for iOS and Android. So let’s get to it!

Did you know you that you can transform your smartphone into a portable office? These are our picks for the best productivity apps, the best calendar apps, and the best note-taking apps you can find.

The best

CamScanner

If you’re serious about document scanning and need as many features as possible, we believe that CamScanner is the app to get. It uses your phone’s camera to scan a document and then lets you crop and enhance the scan so that all graphics and text look crisp. It’s perfect for scanning receipts, notes, whiteboards, books, and any other type of document, and you can upload photos straight from your camera roll. You can also invite others to view and comment on your scans. Another great feature is that you can password protect the app, so that if someone else is using your device, they won’t be able to open the app and view your documents. You can even add annotations and watermarks, and share your scans as JPEG or PDF files.

If you think that’s a lot of features, you have even more available to you if you opt for the premium subscription at $5 per month or $50 per year. You get access to the OCR (optical character recognition) features that extract text from images so that you can edit and export them as text files. You also get 10GB of cloud space and the ability to add up to 40 collaborators. You can send password protected links with an expiry date, and upload your documents to all the most popular cloud storage services like Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, and OneDrive.

Download now for:

Android iOS

The rest

Genius Scan

Genius Scan is a very easy-to-use app that will scan anything, correct the perspective, and give you tools to enhance it in black and white for better legibility. You can also batch scan so you can add pages quickly. You can create JPEG or PDF files with multiple pages. Similar to other document scanning apps, you can organize all your scans in folders and export them to your favorite cloud service. You’ll have to pay for a subscription to take advantage of the Genius Scan cloud service. The subscription costs $3 per month or $30 per year. This app is compatible with Touch ID.

Download now for:

Android iOS

TurboScan

TurboScan also features a very easy to use interface, and it adds SureScan which takes three consecutive scans to make sure you have the sharpest image possible. It boasts document edge detection and perspective correction just like most premium scanner apps. The app works with iCloud, Dropbox, and Google Drive. The TurboScan app costs $6, but there’s a free version of the app you can download to make sure that you like it before you buy.

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Android iOS

Tiny Scanner

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Tiny Scanner is a very simple app. While it may not be as feature-rich as the rest of our list, it certainly gets the job done. Sometimes you just want to scan documents via a simple interface without any added complexity. It allows you to scan in color, grayscale, or black and white. It lets you set five different levels of contrast after you take the picture. It detects the edges automatically, but you can adjust them before you commit to saving the scan. It also allows you to protect the documents with a passcode. It doesn’t work very well with color photos, so this app is more at home when you just want to scan written documents. For access to unlimited documents, batch scanning, cloud services, and AirPrint you can purchase the app for a one-time fee of $5.

Android iOS

Office Lens

Office Lens from Microsoft is the simplest document scanning app there is. It is so easy that all you have to do is position your device above the document and as soon as it detects the corners of what you’re scanning just press the shutter button. Office Lens has one of the best document edge detections that we’ve seen in document scanner apps. You can then adjust the corners to fit it perfectly if needed, but it’s rare that you’ll need to. It will give you a choice of whether you’re scanning a business card, photo, document, or taking a photo from a whiteboard. The interface is so simple that it is the most intuitive document scanner app you’ll find. Once you’re finished scanning, you can save your scans as JPEGs in your camera roll or as PDFs.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Let us guide you through the enormous number of apps in the App Store and the Play Store. Check out our picks for the best apps for Android and the best apps for iPhone.

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