How do I scan documents with my phone?

Last reviewed: September 24, 2026 · Markdown version

You do not need to install anything: iPhone scans from the Notes and Files apps, and on Android both Google Drive and Files by Google have a scan button. The steps are similar everywhere. What differs is the file you end up with and whether its vendor says the words in it can be searched — which matters more than the scan itself if you ever want to find that page again.

iPhone: Notes

Open Notes, and in a note tap the Attachments button, then Scan Documents.
Hold the page in view. With automatic capture, Apple says "Your iPhone automatically captures the document when it detects the page boundaries"; you can also capture by hand and "Adjust the corners as needed".
Scan any further pages, then tap to finish.

The result, in Apple's words: "The document is saved as a PDF in the note" (Scan text and documents in Notes using the iPhone camera, read 24 September 2026). That page does not say whether the PDF carries recognised text, and it does not say how to get the PDF out of the note into Files. The same page offers a separate Scan Text option, which inserts the words themselves into the note "In supported languages" — useful if you want the text rather than a copy of the page.

iPhone: straight into Files

If you would rather the scan be a file than an attachment in a note, Apple documents a second route: "In the Files app, tap the More button", then "Tap Scan Documents", and finish with "Choose a location, then tap Save" (How to scan documents on your iPhone or iPad, read 24 September 2026). Capture works as in Notes — "If your device is in Auto mode, your document will automatically scan" — and you drag the corners to fit the page before tapping Keep Scan. That article does not name the file format the Files route saves, and like the Notes page it says nothing about recognised text, so open the result once before relying on it.

Android: Google Drive

Google describes Drive's scanner in one line: "Scan documents like receipts, letters, and billing statements to save them as searchable PDFs on your Google Drive" (Scan documents with Google Drive, read 24 September 2026). In the Drive app, tap Camera at the bottom right, point it at the page, then use Crop & Rotate, Filter or Clean as needed and Add for further pages. Before saving, "select either .pdf or .jpg", then pick a Drive folder with Location.

Note where it goes: into your Google Drive. "Searchable" is Google's word for how the scan behaves on Drive; the page does not say whether the recognised text travels inside the PDF when you download it.

Android: Files by Google

Files by Google has its own Scan button at the bottom right and makes a similar promise: "You can quickly scan documents in Files by Google and save them as searchable PDFs" (How to scan documents with Files by Google, read 24 September 2026). The difference is where the file lands — on the phone, not in a cloud folder: "You can find your scanned documents in a dedicated "Scanned" folder in the "Downloads" directory." Google adds that "Scanned documents are automatically saved as PDFs."

Is the scan searchable? Check, do not assume

Of the four vendor pages, the two from Google use the word "searchable" (Scan documents with Google Drive and How to scan documents with Files by Google, both read 24 September 2026) and the two from Apple are silent (Scan text and documents in Notes using the iPhone camera and How to scan documents on your iPhone or iPad, both read 24 September 2026), and none says how well the recognition copes with a crumpled receipt or small print. Our advice is to test one scan before you scan a hundred: open the PDF, try to select a word, or search for one you can see on the page. If nothing highlights, the file is a picture of a page. How to tell for certain.

If it turns out to be image-only, that is fixable after the fact — making a scanned PDF searchable covers the options, and what OCR is explains what the recognition step is actually doing.

Three habits that make scans easier to use later

These are ours, not the vendors'. Scan on a dark, plain surface so the edge detection has something to find. Name the file as you save it — Drive prompts for a name, and a date plus a word such as 2026-09 electricity bill beats the default. And keep one kind of document per file; a PDF that mixes a receipt, a warranty card and a letter is hard to file and hard to find.