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Agent Derek Meister-Geek Squad spoke to Bill about Apps to Scan Documents Using Your Phone - iPhone: Preview app - For Android: FairScan
https://lifehacker.com/tech/iphone-hiding-powerful-document-scanner
https://www.wired.com/story/fairscan-simple-app-for-scanning-documents-on-android/
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I regularly use my iPhone to scan physical documents like medical reports, identity cards, forms from my bank, etc. Since 2015 or so, I've used an app called Scanner Pro to get the job done. It works well enough, but the best features require a subscription and it is no longer as fast as I'd like it to be. I've long known about Apple's built-in scanner in the Notes app, but it isn't as convenient as the app I've been using, so I never made the switch.
For iPhone: Preview app
That changed when I recently discovered another built-in scanner on the iPhone, hidden away in the Preview app, of all places. This one is fast, free, and well integrated with the Files app, which is a big plus. Here's why you should consider using it
Your iPhone ships with an app called Preview, which was added with the release of iOS 26 in 2025. Now, when you open a document in the Files app, your iPhone will automatically switch to Preview and load the it. However, if you open the Preview app directly, you'll see a "Scan Documents" button front and center.
When you tap Scan Documents in Preview, your iPhone will fire up the viewfinder, and you can point the device at the documents you want to scan. Like Scanner Pro, the Preview app's scanner automatically identifies document borders, takes a picture to scan, and reopens the viewfinder so you can point the camera at the next page; it'll scan that quickly too. Continue this process till you're done scanning, after which you can hit the checkmark button in the top-right corner. The scanned PDF will automatically be saved to your iCloud Drive folder, without the need to export it. I found this process to be really fast and intuitive enough to recommend to my family members, who resist any technology that requires them to install a new app or press more than two buttons.
When the scanner is open, you'll see four buttons near the bottom of the screen. The big shutter button lets you manually click pictures for the scan, and the other three let you toggle flash, set color filters, and toggle on the auto-shutter feature, respectively. Auto shutter is the best feature of this app, as it automatically scans a page the moment it detects borders, but it's not perfect. If you want more precise control over your scans, you can disable it, and control the shutter manually
For Android: FairScan
Most scanning apps try to get you to buy a cloud storage subscription or pay for extras. Not FairScan, which is free and open-source, and has some powerful features.
FairScan creator Pierre-Yves Nicolas wrote in a blog post last year that he had previously tried several Android apps for scanning documents. "All of them exhibited behaviors that I certainly don't want," he says. These behaviors included obvious things like ads, hidden privacy violations, and shady practices such as storing your documents in the cloud—then using them to train AI—with only a tiny text prompt notifying you this is happening.
FairScan, which is both free and open source, doesn't do any of that. It scans.