Winproductivity
9 min readJul 3, 2021

Nowadays, you don’t need scanners or printers to scan documents. Scanning documents used to be such an inconvenience, but not anymore, all thanks to scanner apps. Need to scan documents, receipts, business cards, or extract texts from scans? The scanner applications let you do all of that and more. As most smartphones have a good camera nowadays, you can scan documents in high quality using any one of the best document scanner applications. Moreover, scanning PDFs with your phone is a faster and better process. Some advantages of using the Android scanner app are that it lets you access documents from the cloud, store the documents in the cloud, offers powerful editing features, and some even come with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) support. Here, we have listed the ten best scanner apps for Android.

Adobe Scan

Adobe Scan is one of the best scanner apps for Android. It lets you scan notes, forms, documents, receipts, images and converts them to PDF files. It is a simple and effective application that lets you scan documents with ease. Once you point your phone’s camera to the document, it recognizes and scans the document automatically. It allows you to reorder the pages as needed, and you can also color-correct the pages if needed. Also, there is a built-in OCR that permits you to reuse scanned content. You can scan multiple pages and combine them into a single PDF file.

adobe Scan

Furthermore, the Adobe Scan app lets you share your scanned files via email, or you can upload them to the cloud. Overall, Adobe Scan more or less covers all the necessary features. The finest part about the app is that Adobe Scan is entirely free with no ads.

Features of Adobe Scan

  • It supports multiple page scanning combining into a single file.
  • Adobe Scan allows color correction and cleanup for any stains or creases in the scanned documents
  • A worthy OCR scanner for Android
  • Offers color correct options
  • It allows you to reorder the pages

ScanBot

ScanBot is a scanner application that lets you scan documents in premium quality with more than 200 dpi. It allows you to scan almost anything including documents, receipts, business cards, invoices, tickets, whiteboard notes, and many more. Once you scan documents, you can even sign them or add notes. You can save the scanned documents to Dropbox, Box, Evernote, Google Drive, OneDrive and easily share them.

ScanBot

ScanBot is available pro version as well, which has a “Smart names” feature that lets you save different scans with different specific names so that they are easier to discover. The pro version offers themes for the application with text extraction.

Features of ScanBot

  • Document scanning as PDF and JPG
  • QR-code scanning
  • Barcode scanning
  • OCR text recognition (Optical Character Recognition)
  • MRZ data extraction
  • EHIC card data extraction

Google Drive Scanner

Google Drive application for Android has an inbuilt option that lets you scan documents. Google Drive application lets you scan documents with ease. For people who are unaware, if you tap the add button in Drive, you can get an option to scan along with other options. The scan option opens the camera and allows you to scan documents on the go. It also allows you to scan several documents at once and save them in your Drive cloud storage. The tool offers basic crop and adjustment features for the document as color change options, image quality selector, etc. Overall, the document scanner app is the best alternative for users who rarely use other Android scanner apps and don’t want a dedicated one to fill up their phone storage.

Features Google Drive Scanner

  • No need to install any other app if you already have the Drive app
  • It directly saves the documents in the Drive
  • It offers all the basic options you need

Clear Scan

Clear Scan is a scanner app for Android that quickly scans any documents or images from your phone. You can then transform the scanned documents and images to PDF and JPEG format. This scanner app for Android is lightweight and offers fast processing. It also lets you print the scanned documents and pictures by Cloud Print. This free scanner application provides various professional editing features after saving the images to the gallery.

Clear Scan

Also, it lets you save multiple pages within one document, set page sizes for PDF, reorder pages, etc. It also has cloud support for Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. Clear Scanner is free; however, it does feature ads.

Features of Clear scan

  • It is a lightweight mobile scanner
  • It can operate fast.
  • It boasts fast processing speeds
  • Cloud support for Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive
  • Provides options for both PDF and JPEG conversions.
  • Additional features include a small app size, organization features, editing options, and more.

Genius Scan

Genius Scan is a free scanner application for Android that lets you scan documents with ease. This application is fast in document detection. However, the app is best in accurate automatic crop. You will rarely feel the need to adjust the dimensions after the auto-crop. Genius Scan brings some cool tools like smart page detection, perspective correction, and various amplifications for high-quality scans. It supports different page layouts as A3, A4, A5, Letter, Legal, and Business cards. The application also includes the ability to backup and restore scanned data. You can transform to both PDF & JPG scans, and you can do multiple scans as well.

Top 10 Android Scanner apps

Other than that, it offers standard document editing features such as the option to apply filters, remove shadows, apply filters, batch scanning, combine multiple-page to one PDFs, and more. Genius Scan does a wonderful job when it comes to cleaning the document. Genius Scan is available in both free as well as Plus versions, which brings export options to various cloud services like Box, Dropbox, OneDrive, and more. It excludes ads from the application and lets you have a custom sign. The best thing about this application is that all these features are loaded in a great UI.

Features of Genius Scan

  • Pretty good with auto-crop
  • Fast document detection and processing
  • Has various amplification for high-quality scans
  • Supports different page layouts
  • Great User Interface

Microsoft Office Lens

Office Lens is another best Android scanner application developed by Microsoft for scanning documents and images. You can capture any document and convert images to PDF, Word, or PowerPoint files on the go. It also lets you save your files to OneDrive, OneNote, or to your local storage. The application is applicable for both business and school purposes. Apart from English, it also works in other languages as German, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese.

Microsoft Lens

Office Lens is ad-free, and it also does not contain any in-app purchases.

Features of Microsoft Office Lens

  • It is quick and easy to operate.
  • It is applicable for both school and business purposes.
  • Ad-free app
  • You can capture any document and convert images to PDF, Word, or PowerPoint files
  • It also lets you save your files to OneDrive, OneNote, or to your local storage.

vFlat Scan

vFlat Android scanner app tends to be your solution for scanning documents, notes, and books efficiently and quickly. There’s a timer at the top which allows the application to take pictures regularly, that makes the process smoother. The 3-second timer worked fine and gave enough time to turn the pages with the other hand. This way, it makes the process easier; there is no need to tap the shutter button again after turning the pages.

vFlat Scan

The scanned pages can be further combined together into a single PDF document and can be exported. There’s an OCR option as well, but there is a limit of 100 recognitions per day, which is enough.

Features of vFlat Scan

  • Scan your document quickly and efficiently.
  • Automatic shutter option for fast scanning
  • Easy PDF stitching and export
  • Turn scans into clear and sharp PDFs.

Document Scanner

Document Scanner app aims to be the one-stop scanning solution. It offers most of the basic features like scanning, PDF conversion, OCR support, and more. However, Document Scanner also includes image support and a QR code scanner. Thus, you can use this to scan practically anything. It even has the feature of turning on a flashlight in a low-light environment. It is definitely one of the more powerful document scanner apps. That’s just how these things work. Still, it’s a great option for those who need to kill several birds with one stone.

Document scanner

Features of Document Scanner

  • Scan your document.
  • Enhance the scan quality automatically/Manually.
  • Enhancement includes smart cropping and many more.
  • Optimize your PDF into modes like B/W, Lighten, Color, and dark.
  • Turn scans into clear and sharp PDFs.
  • Arrange your doc in the folder and subfolders.
  • The application offers third-party cloud storage where you can scan documents, papers and save them on cloud storage.
  • Scanned documents or files are saved to your device in image or PDF format
  • Scans PDF with edge detection feature

Mobile Doc scanner

If we are talking about the perfect scanner apps for Android, the Smart Doc Scanner fits into the category perfectly. It covers almost all essential features for scanning documents. It also supports OCR to read text from images in 40+ languages and includes spelling checks as well. You can also set the size of the page, enable batch-scanning mode for multi-page documents, which lets you scan documents quickly, one after the other, and many other features. It also has crop and zoom features to scan pages in a better way. Mobile Doc Scanner comes in full as well as a Lite version. The application offers some cool gestures to navigate the application easily. It has a new camera2 API, which brings higher quality and better scans. It supports various page layouts like Executive, Tabloid, A3, A4, A5, B5, Business card, Envelope, Letter, Legal and more.

Mobile Doc Scanner

Thi document scanner app supports output in almost all the image formats like JPEG, PNG, GIP, BMP, and WebP. It integrates with Dropbox, Google Drive, and other cloud storage options. Mobile Doc Scanner also supports cloud storage services that let you save your scanned files and documents with ease. The full version of this scanner removes ads & watermark and adds the ability to read PDF files, extract texts, and more. This application doesn’t display ads or offer any in-app purchases.

Features of Mobile Doc Scanner

  • It is lightweight.
  • It has an intuitive interface that allows users to scan rapidly
  • Support OCR and cloud storage
  • It has a new camera2 API
  • It integrates with Dropbox, Google Drive, and other cloud storage options.

Tiny Scanner

Tiny Scanner is a reliable document scanner for Android that offers most of the standard features. This scanner doesn’t require you to log in before use, so you can use it right away. You can scan documents, reports, receipts, or other files, and lets you save them in PDF format. Tiny scanner app supports all popular cloud storage services and lets you print necessary files within few minutes.

Tiny scanner

Moreover, it has auto edge detection, which prevents any distortion by straightening out the images. Tiny Scanner features five levels of contrast, a quick search by document title, also has passcode protection for important documents, etc.

Features of Tiny scanner

  • It is optimized to work quickly.
  • You can scan in grayscale, color, or black and white.
  • Supports cloud services like Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, etc.
  • It has auto edge detection
  • Tiny Scanner features five levels of contrast

Conclusion

So, these were the picks for the best Android scanner apps of 2021. But choosing the right one depends on what kind of usage you’re looking for. Whether you want a pre-loaded and easy-to-use document scanner like Google Drive or Office Lens or, if you want advanced scanners then you might want to go for Clear Scanner, Adobe Scanner, Fast Scanner, etc.