It’s perfect! Do you guys already do this?
I open a letter, I take it’s picture with FairScan. The FairScan-folder on my android device gets syncthinged to the ingest folder for Paperless-ngx on my “server”. Paperless imports it, deletes the file and sets the new documents tag to inbox. I decide if the document goes to the binder for important stuff, or if I just toss it in a binder with all the paper I most likely will never touch again. Next time I look at Paperless, I edit all documents with the inbox tag and remove the tag.
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I use a different app (though I’ll be checking out FairScan), but that’s pretty much exactly my workflow for things that aren’t convenient to do basically the same thing on my desktop PC & scanner.
Sounds like a great workflow!
Unfortunately, I just can’t get syncthing to run in the background of my phone without chewing up the battery.
You can get it to run at time intervals. E.g. once an hour for 5 minutes. That’s not bad on battery for me. I actually have mine once every 24 hours for 30 minutes so it can successfully transfer a few gigs of Signal backups.
I will look into this, thank you!
Oh man I just set this up. I just changed to a high deductible health plan with an HSA and need to save all of my medical receipts. I already had paperless set up but i was dreading setting up some automated way of getting files over to paperless. Thank you so much!
I haven’t used FairScan (yet!), how does it compare to OSS Document Scanner? Other than having a much much better name, obviously.
I tried OSS Document Scanner a year ago but never really used it. It has way more features but I didn’t need any of them. With FairScan, you just take pictures, give them a name and save them either as a single PDF or a couple PNGs. Repeat if necessary.
I luckily have a professional document scanner for this, which has wifi and is able to store the PDF on a cloud drive. Started using ASN numbers recently, so I put a sticker on the letter before scanning. The letter gets archived and is found quickly if needed because of the ASN.
Yesterday I wanted to introduce syncthing as my main backup solution. However, I am struggling with setting up the discovery server and want to fix that before installing it on all my devices.
Heads up if your Paperless is installed via Docker: be VERY CAREFUL about your database version and do an export often!
Mine has been down for a while because I did a pull and it doesn’t support my version of Postgresql anymore. So it’s kinda a huge mess trying to figure out how to safely migrate it in the container.
I haven’t been able to fix it yet so I’ve just left it disabled and gone without for a while. It’s not fun.
Allegedly if you export from within Paperless, you can just start with a fresh updated database container and import when this happens. Oof.
This is a reminder for self-hosters to put their apps (and their data) on snapshotting filesystems with automatic, regular snapahots turned on; and fix the app versions to at least the major version, across all containers. This should bring similar disruption to bare minimum and makes recovery always possible, without relying on specific app backup features.
I don’t think Postgres shouldn’t be just left as
:latestor anything. At least the way I handle it, DB upgrades require manual intervention.I just got burned by accidental latest tag on a pg container for Nextcloud. They moved some paths internally and it could no longer find the db.
your version of postgres meaning that you use a db external to the docker container?
No sadly the upgrade path is a bit ducked. Their compose, their versions, still not working without intervention.
Thank you, yes, exactly what I meant. It’s a bit baffling such a mature project doesn’t have some kind of migration script. :(
Well, crap
Purely awesome app if you scan a straight paper that are not cut in any way. I miss the ability to manually crop the images. Will still use the app, though.
Thanks for recommending it 🙂 Have always used a flatbed scanner for my papers (receipts, bills, etc.), but now I can scan on the go 😊
There are companion apps for paperless (like Paperparrot for iOS) that simplify that process even more.
No need for syncthing.
Paperparrot is flawless. The dev is also very responsive and helpful.
They also offer a similarly flawless app called Plappa as frontend for your audiobookserver.
Running both, super happy.
Or “Swift Paperless” on iOS too, at least that’s what I use
This is the transhumanism I like.
Jokes aside, how did you deal with your papers from the past? I do this with all new incoming mail, but I can’t for the life of me find the time to scan the pile of taxes, bills, medical reports, etc. that has accumulated over 3 thousand years of family life.
I took my Very Important Documents!!-folder to a neighbour with a decent scanner. It’s not that much, we scanned for an hour or two. Older, less important stuff stays in binders I most likely will never touch. If I do have to look at something from there, I snap a quick FairScan before I put it back. So it’s not about perfection, I just try to make my live easier from now on. :)
You could buy an automatic scanner that takes a stack of docs and dumps the files to a network share.
Do you have any particular model in mind? What do you mean by “automatic scanner”? Any scanner I know needs quite a lot of manual preparation to scan a batch of documents.
Epson WorkForce DS‑730N
put 100 sheets on the tray, it scans them all and either puts them all into a single pdf or multiple pdfs. Then you split / merge them in software.
Not very automatic, is it? There are definitely better ways to scan high volumes of documents.
please elaborate
You can use e.g. barcodes, patch codes or separator sheets (which usually carry the patch code). Sometimes you can also separate documents by recognising some feature on the first page, e.g. a logo or a barcode that’s already there. And of course it’s a good idea to put single page documents in a separate batch so you just separate them by page count. This of course also works if all documents are two or three pages long.
afaik you just listed features that the printer I mentioned (or if I am wrong, other similar printers) supports
it’s my bad for not mentioning all possible workflows, I was just a bit lazy and thinking of my personal documents only, which do not work well with further smart automation, because my batches are highly irregular. So the more manual approach is the best for me currently. Maybe possible with some future AI integration.
No, I use a printer/scanner combo for scanning my files. I trigger a shell script via HomeAssistant which starts the scanner, cleans and fixes the order of the pages for two sided documents, and then puts them into the paperless folder.
But your idea is great!
would you mind to elaborate more on the script? Also, what output format do you use from the scanner?
Its a hacked together shell script. I wanted to learn shell scripting, but I should’ve probably programmed it in python.
But it basically does this:
- scan pages as png via scanimage in gray scale
- convert the image into a high contrast b/w one with image magick
- sort pages if I have to combine two scans (front and back side)
- create a single pdf of all the document pages via image magick
- move pdf to the paperless folder
I won’t share it because it’s really ugly and some of the functionality can be done with paperless native, like combining the pages of two scans. Which would’ve been easier.
Thanks! And that’s ok, I’m more interested in the steps than the code itself. Do you apply any optimizations with image magik in step 2?
I keep having trouble getting paperless to actually injest any scans from the injest folder.
Wait, this is genius. When paperless has processed it and moves the original, it’s also removed from your phone, right?
Yes, paperless deletes it from the import folder which is synced with syncthing, so on android the folder is also empty
Why don’t you use the mobile app? Mine works just fine
At least I think it does. Maybe all the docs that I upload are lost. Who knows 😅
Exactly what I came here to say, paperless app already have a scanner no need to fiddle with file sync and stuff 😊
Haha, thanks. I didn’t know this existed! I already use Syncthing, so that’s no problem. And I like that FairScan rotates my picture and adjusts it’s angle. If the Paperless Uploader-app does this as well, I might use it. Taking a look right now!
Last updated 2024/01/26… Hmmm…
edit: checked the wiki, here are the apps for Android
- Paperless Share: last updated 2022/02
- Paperless Mobile: as said, last updated 2024/01
- Paperless‑NGX Android Uploader: last updated 2025/09, not on F-Droid standard repo
- PaperNext last updated 2026/01, unknown license, doesn’t seem to be OSS
Does it detect the four corners and adjusts the angle to make it flat 2D?
It does, sometimes… but it is not a huge PITA.
I need to see if FairScan would do a better job.
Thank you for introducing me to FairScan! Great app. I have a scanner but being able to snap stuff on the go is so much quicker.
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