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Paperless operates by watching a folder for new files so doesn’t care what scanner you use, but sometimes finding a scanner that will write to an FTP, NFS, or SMB server can be difficult.
This page is here to help you find one that works right for you based on recommendations from other Paperless users.

Hardware Scanner | Scan Apps | Scan to API

Physical Scanners

Brand	Model	FTP	SFTP	NFS	SMB	SMTP	WebDAV	API[1]	Recommended By
Brother	ADS-1000W	✓							CitizenStile, ytzelf
Brother	ADS-1200	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓		✓	christf linux, push-to-scan, FTP/SFTP/NFS/SMB/SMTP/api-upload via brscan-skey & script, see Discussion
Brother	ADS-1500W	✓			✓	✓			danielquinn
Brother	ADS-1600W	✓			✓	✓			holzhannes
Brother	ADS-1700W	✓	✓		✓	✓			holzhannes
Brother	ADS-1800W	✓	✓		✓	✓			ghmax, gatto
Brother	ADS-2400N	✓	✓		✓	✓			oliboehm
Brother	ADS-2600We	✓	✓		✓	✓			nodecentral
Brother	ADS-2700W	✓	✓		✓	✓			ajfriesen
Brother	ADS-2800W	✓	✓		✓	✓			philpagel
Brother	ADS-3300W	✓	✓		✓	✓			bcthebc
Brother	ADS-4300N	✓	✓		✓	✓			derlucas
Brother	ADS-4700W	✓	✓		✓	✓			ocelotsloth
Brother	MFC-J5330DW	✓	✓		✓	✓			fanuch
Brother	MFC-J5740DW	✓	✓		✓	✓			foosinn
Brother	MFC-J5910DW	✓							bmsleight
Brother	MFC-J6920DW	✓			✓				sayael
Brother	MFC-J6930DW	✓							ayounggun
Brother	MFC-L2750DW	✓			✓	✓			muued
Brother	MFC-L2860DW	✓				✓			m-ober
Brother	MFC-L2900DW	✓			✓				tousheroux
Brother	MFC-L2960DW	✓			✓	✓			Jacob-JA-Shanks
Brother	MFC-L3740CDW	✓			✓	✓			essys
Brother	MFC-L5850DW	✓				✓			holzhannes
Brother	MFC-L8690CDW	✓			✓				toertsche
Brother	MFC-5890CN	✓				✓			huettenwirt
Brother	MFC-8950DW	✓			✓	✓			philpagel
Brother	MFC-9140CDN	✓			✓				Obidose
Brother	MFC-9142CDN	✓			✓				REOLDEV
Brother	MFC-9340CDW	✓							BBooDad
Brother	DCP-L3510CDW	✓			✓	✓			puralpha
Brother	DCP-9020CDW	✓			✓	✓			silaskreuze2008
Canon	Maxify MB 2750				✓[2]	✓			renepusch
Canon	Maxify MB 5350				✓[2]	✓			eingemaischt
Canon	Maxify MB 5150				✓[2][3]	✓			mhelff
Canon	MF443DW	✓			✓	✓			PMiBu
Canon	MF633C/635C	✓			✓	✓			Skram-de
Canon	MF645Cx	✓			✓	✓			gruessung
Canon	MF754CDW				✓				lordleicester
Doxie	Q2							✓ [4]	Unkn0wnCat
Epson	ES-580W	✓			✓	✓			fignew okcodemaybe
Epson	ES-C380W	✓			✓	✓			viktor-c
Epson	WF-7710DWF	✓			✓				Skylinar
Epson	WF-3640	✓			✓	✓			xbmcnut
Epson	WF-4830	✓			✓				Tomlawesome
Epson	WF-4833	✓		✓	✓				Silycr
Epson	WP-4595	✓			✓	✓			RunnerLexico
Epson	WF-7840	✓		✓	✓				Silycr
Fujitsu	ix500	✓							eonist
Fujitsu	N1800	✓			✓	✓			thiemo
Fujitsu	N7100	✓			✓	✓			thiemo
Fujitsu	S1300i								USB only, see Discussion
HP	MFP M277 dw				✓	✓			glassbox_sco
Kyocera	ECOSYS m6526cdn	✓			✓	✓			randrej
Lexmark	MB2442adwe	✓			✓	✓			tooomm
PFU Limited (Ricoh) / Fujitsu	ScanSnap iX1600				✓[5]	(✓)[6]			jerodg

[1]: Scanners with API Integration allow to push scanned documents directly to Paperless API, sometimes referred to as Webhook or Document POST, see API Scanning Setup.

[2]: Canon Multi Function Printers show strange behavior over SMB. They close and reopen the file after every page. It’s recommended to tune the polling and inotify configuration values for your scanner. The scanner timeout is 3 minutes, so 180 is a good starting point.

[3]: Older Canon MFPs like the MB5150 can only scan to SMBv1 shares. This is now no longer available or disabled by default in most modern OS and NAS systems. To still use these devices without compromising you main storage by enabling SMB v1 either use a smb proxy like scan-to-smb1 or a dedicated smb v1 docker image like maxify-smbv1.

[4]: Doxie Q2: The caveat is that support will not be provided at all (as it's unsupported feature by them), and it may disappear in a firmware update. HTTPS is also not implemented on the device despite what the UI may get you to believe. They have not plans on finishing the webhook feature according to Paul S aka CEO of Doxie & Co due to no demand to do so. CANNOT recommend as a result. - samip5/kryptonian

[5]: Requires Firmware 0P00 and ScanSnap Home v2.12.0 or newer (25July2023). See Network Requirements and Firmware Changelog.

[6]: Can prepare an email for use with a desktop email application or requires signing up for a free ScanSnap cloud account and is limited to 300 emails/month; not explicitely SMTP or IMAP compatable.

Mobile Phone Software

You can use your phone to “scan” documents. The regular camera app will work, but may have too low contrast for OCR to work well. If you do not mind using cloud storage services like Dropbox or OneDrive, they have simple scanning capabilities build into their apps as well.
Apps specifically for scanning are recommended.

Name	OS	FTP	NFS	SMB	SMTP	WebDAV	API[7]	Custom HTTP Headers	Recommended By
Genius Scan	Android, iOS	✓		✓	✓	✓			hannahswain
Less Paper	iOS						✓		mirisbowring
OpenScan	Android								benjaminfrank
Paperless Document Scanner	iOS						✓		victortowers
Paperparrot	iOS						✓	✓	thiemo
QuickScan	iOS			✓		✓	✓		holzhannes
Scanly	iOS						✓		adamgolczak
Swift Paperless	iOS						✓	✓	benonymity

On Android, you can use these applications in combination with one of the Paperless-ngx compatible apps to “Share” the documents produced by these scanner apps with Paperless.

On iOS, you can share the scanned documents via iOS Sharing to e.g. mail, WebDav or FTP apps to make them available in Paperless. Apple's Files app support connecting to network shares as well. There is also an iOS Shortcut that allows you to directly upload text, PDF and image documents available here. Please note, the shortcut only works for documents downloaded to iCloud / the device, in other words not directly from a URL.

[7]: Apps with Paperless API support can upload documents directly to Paperless without another application, just by providing the URL and an authentication (credentials or token).

API Scanning Setup

This sections contains information on how to set up scanners to post directly to Paperless API.

Doxie Q2

This part assumes your Doxie is connected to WiFi and you know its IP.

1. Open your Doxie web UI by navigating to its IP address
2. Navigate to Options -> Webhook
3. Set the URL to http://[your-paperless-ngx-instance]/api/documents/post_document/ (HTTPS is not supported)
4. Set the File Parameter Name to document
5. Add the username and password to the respective fields (Consider creating a user just for your Doxie) and click Submit at the bottom of the page

Congrats, you can now scan directly from your Doxie to your Paperless-ngx instance!