Thanks to smartphones, it's easier than ever to digitize you various documents — such as bills, receipts, newspaper articles and even photos — so that you can access them whenever you want. All you have to do is open an app, point your camera at it and — snap — it's saved in the cloud.
Most scanner apps (as well as apps with dedicated scanner features) have built-in technologies that automatically cut, crop and (sometimes) color your scanned document so that it looks best. We've rounded up the best scanner apps that you can use right now. Which one you choose will depend largely on the services and apps you already use, as well as how you plan to use your documents after they are scanned.
Adobe Scan
Adobe Scan is one of the best scanner apps because of its simplicity and accuracy — it's also free. Adobe saves all these scans as PDFs, which might be a point of frustration for those who want to save as a JPEG so they can add to a Word document or PowerPoint presentation. Also, it saves all your scanned PDFs to its own cloud storage system, Adobe Document Cloud, and isn't the best if you use other cloud storage systems, like Google Drive or Dropbox. It's available on iOS and Android.
Price: Free
Apple Notes
If you're user of Apple's Notes app, the good news is that it has a built-in scanner feature that's super simple to use. All you to do is app the Notes app > select or create a note > tep the camera icon > select Scan Documents. Also, it's free.
Price: Free
Stack
Stack is a new scanner app for Android owners who use Google Drive. It's lets you to digitize your various documents, saving them as PDFs and then automatically uploading to Google Drive. It has some fairly straightforward organization tools, making it really simple and easy to use. There's no iOS app at this time, but that could change in the near future.
Price: Free
SwiftScan
If you're looking for a more powerful and feature-packed scanner app, SwiftScan might be your best bet. It has a number of organization and search tools, and allows you to save scanned documents as PDFs or JPEGs, making them more easily shared; additionally it works with most cloud services, including as iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive. The downside is that, well, it can be expensive — especially if you have an iPhone. A subscription costs $6/month ($35 year) for iOS, while an Android subscription costs less than half that.
Dropbox Scan App
In the middle of 2020, Dropbox introduced a new scanner feature to its iOS app — unfortunately, it's not yet available on its Android app yet — that allows you digitize your documents and photos and upload them right to your Dropbox. All you have to do open the Dropbox app > select the + icon > select Scan Document. The app allows you to save a file as a PDF or PNG.
Price: Free
