OnlyScans: a private PDF scanner with OCR and scan to Word

OnlyScans is the document scanner we built for the paperwork that ends up on your phone anyway: receipts for an expense claim, a lease that needs signing, a form for school, a passport copy for a booking, a page of lecture notes. You point the camera at the page, the app finds the edges and straightens it, and you get a document you can actually use, as a PDF, an editable Word file, or a JPEG or PNG image.

Two things shaped how we built it. The first is that the documents people scan are often the most private ones they own. So OnlyScans keeps its library on your device, scans and recognizes text on the device, and does not ask you to create an account. There are no ads. Your documents leave your phone only when you export or share them, and then they go where you send them.

The second is that a scan is rarely the end of the job. You usually need to do something with it: copy a reference number, cover an account number before sending a statement, add a signature, shrink the file to fit an upload limit, or lock it with a password. Those tools sit next to the scanner instead of in three separate apps. Redaction boxes are burned into the exported page, password-protected PDFs use AES encryption, and the export screen shows you the resolution and the final file size so you know what you are sending.

The free tier is a complete scanner: unlimited scanning, multi-page documents, cropping, rotation and filters, merging documents, and PDF, Word, JPEG and PNG export with no watermarks. Pro adds the heavier tools: batch scanning, text recognition and searchable PDFs, ID and business-card scanning, signatures and page editing including redaction, password-protected exports, App Lock, PDF import and enhanced Word layouts.

OnlyScans is a good fit if you want a scanner that does the everyday jobs well without uploading your paperwork, and if you read or write in more than one script: text recognition covers 89 languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Hindi. It is available on Google Play and the App Store, and the official product site, onlyscans.app, has its own set of how-to guides.

Here is the path from paper to a shared file on Android. The iPhone app follows the same flow with the same screens.

1. Pick a scan type. On the main screen, Quick Actions offers Single Scan for one document, Batch Scan for a stack of separate documents (Pro), and Cards for an ID document or a business card.
2. Capture the pages. Hold the phone over the page on a contrasting surface. The scanner detects the edges and straightens the page; keep capturing to add more pages to the same document, then save.
3. Tidy up the document. In the document view, drag pages to reorder them, tap Add pages to scan more, and open each page's Adjustments to crop, rotate or apply a filter. The page tools also include Extract text, Place signature and Add text, where you will find the Redact tab.
4. Name it and file it. Rename the document, pin it if you need it often, and move it into a folder from the Library tab.
5. Export. Tap Export and choose a format (PDF Document, Word Document, JPEG Image or PNG Image), a global filter, the quality slider and the page layout (Fit keeps margins, Fill uses the whole page). Under Advanced options, turn on Make PDF searchable (OCR) or Password protect.
6. Share, print or save. The finished screen shows the file size. Share it through any installed app, print it with Android printing, or save it to a folder you choose. You can also have every export copied to a folder automatically.

New to phone scanning? Our guide to better phone scans covers light, angle and background, and scanning multi-page documents and books covers long jobs.

Your scan library is stored locally on your device. Document scanning and text recognition run on the device, and we do not operate a server that receives your documents. There is no account to create and there are no ads. A document leaves your phone only when you export, share, print or save it somewhere, and from that point it follows the settings of the app or service you sent it to.

Scanning works offline once the components it needs are on your phone. Internet access is needed in a few specific cases: to download scanner or text-recognition components, to download optional model packs (an enhanced OCR model for a language, or the roughly 27 MB document-layout models used by the Enhanced Word layout), and to verify purchases. On Android, the default scanner and text recognition use Google Play services and ML Kit components that run on the device.

Several settings protect documents that are already on your phone. Privacy screen hides the app's preview in the recent-apps view and blocks screenshots and screen sharing. App Lock (Pro) asks for your device unlock, such as a fingerprint, face or passcode, before the app opens, and always turns the privacy screen on with it. When you redact a page, the app also clears the document's stored recognized text and any business-card fields, so covered information does not linger in search data.

Because the library lives only on your device, uninstalling the app removes it. Export important documents to storage you back up. The full details are in the OnlyScans privacy policy.