A free scanner app for iPhone and Android: what the free plan includes

How to scan a document for free with Doc Scanner

1. Install Doc Scanner

   Download Doc Scanner free from the App Store or Google Play and open it. There's nothing to sign up for.

2. Choose a camera mode

   Tap Scan. Use Document for a single page or Batch to capture many pages into one PDF.

3. Hold your phone over the page

   Smart edge detection finds the corners, straightens the perspective and captures the page for you. Turn the page and keep going; tap Add page later if you missed one.

4. Tidy it up

   Crop with the corner handles, rotate, and pick a filter such as Magic Color, Grayscale or B&W. Tap Apply to all pages to use it everywhere.

5. Sign it if needed

   Tap Sign, draw your signature once, then place and resize it on the page. It's saved for next time.

6. Share or print

   Tap Share, choose PDF or JPG, set the quality, page size and pages, then send it through your phone's share sheet or tap Print.

Free to download, with a free plan

Doc Scanner is free to download on the App Store and Google Play, and the free plan is a real scanner, not a demo: you can scan, clean up, sign, organize and export documents without paying. There are no ads between your scans and no stamp on your pages.

If you need more, an optional Premium subscription (weekly, monthly or yearly) adds the advanced tools listed below. The free plan has a document limit, so if you scan a lot, Premium is there when you need it. Nothing is charged unless you choose Premium yourself in the App Store or Google Play.

What you can do for free

Everything most people need from a phone scanner is on the free plan:

• Scan with smart edge detection: automatic edges, perspective correction and auto-capture, one page at a time or many pages into one PDF with Batch.
• Searchable PDFs: every PDF you export gets an invisible text layer, so you can find and copy its words later in a PDF reader. See how a searchable PDF works.
• Free signatures: draw yours once, reuse it, and place and resize it on any page. Learn more about how to sign a PDF on your phone.
• Six filters: Original, Magic Color, Grayscale, B&W, Lighten and Contrast, for one page or all pages.
• Edit pages: crop with corner handles, rotate, rename, add, reorder and delete pages, and highlight key lines in four colours.
• Export and print: PDF or JPG, Low, Medium or High quality, Original, A4 or Letter page size, and only the pages you choose.
• Organize: folders, merging documents, moving or deleting several at once, and search.
• Import: bring in photos from your gallery and existing PDFs. On Android, send files in with Share or Open with; on iPhone, use Open in.
• QR codes: scan a QR code, then copy its value or open the link.

All of this runs on iPhone (iOS 15.5 or later) and Android (7.0 or later), in 21 interface languages, with light and dark mode.

What Premium adds

Premium is for people who need more than a clean PDF. It adds:

• Text extraction (Premium): the Extract Text camera mode and the text screen copy the words from a scan or photo, using AI-powered text recognition that runs on your phone and works offline.
• Word and TXT conversion (Premium): turn a scan into a Word (.docx) or TXT file with Tools → Convert.
• ID card mode (Premium): scan the front and back of an ID card or driver's license and get both sides on one A4-style page.
• Password-protected PDFs (Premium): lock a PDF with AES-256 encryption before you send it.

Text recognition reads Latin-alphabet languages such as English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian and Turkish. If you only scan, sign and send PDFs, you may never need Premium.

How to scan documents for free on iPhone or Android

Your phone may already have a basic scanner. On iPhone, Notes and Files both have a Scan Documents option; on Android, the Google Drive app has a camera button that scans to a PDF. They're fine for an occasional page.

Doc Scanner is the better fit when scanning is a regular job: it keeps every document in folders inside one app, signs with a saved signature, merges files, exports with the quality and page size the recipient expects, and works the same on iPhone and Android, so you can help a parent or a colleague with the same steps. The steps above take you from paper to PDF; for more tips on lighting and framing, read our guide on how to scan documents with your phone.

Quick tips for a free scan that looks professional

• Put the page on a flat, dark surface so its edges stand out.
• Use soft daylight and avoid your own shadow; tilt glossy or laminated pages slightly to remove glare.
• Hold the phone parallel to the page and let auto-capture take the shot.
• Use B&W or Grayscale for text-only pages and Magic Color for forms with stamps or colour.
• Most offices and upload forms expect a PDF; pick Medium quality for e-mail and High for printing.

No ads, no watermarks, no sign-up

These three are where many free scanners make their money, and Doc Scanner skips all of them:

• No ads. No banners, no videos to watch before you can save. Here's why we built a scanner app with no ads.
• No watermarks. Your PDFs and JPGs leave the app exactly as you scanned them, on the free plan too. More on our scanner app with no watermark page.
• No sign-up. An account is created for you automatically, so you start scanning straight away. Signing in with Apple or Google is optional.

Your scans are also private by design: scanning, image processing and text recognition happen on your phone.

Is a scanner app worth paying for?

For most people, the free plan already covers scanning, signing and sending documents: that's what it's for. Some scanner apps charge just to remove ads or a watermark; with Doc Scanner you never pay for either.

Premium is worth it if you regularly need to copy text out of documents, convert scans to Word, send both sides of an ID card on one page, or password-protect PDFs. Comparing options first? Our ranking of the best free scanner apps shows what each free plan really includes.

See Doc Scanner in action

Scan your first document in seconds

Doc Scanner is free to download for iPhone and Android. No ads, no watermarks, no sign-up required.

Scan with your phone camera to get the app

Doc Scanner is not affiliated with Apple and Google. Trademarks belong to their respective owners.

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