The best document scanner app for iPhone, and when you don't need one

What actually differs between scanner apps

Every app on this list finds the page edges, flattens the page and saves a PDF. The differences are in what happens around the capture:

• Searchable text (OCR). Can you select a word in the PDF and find the file later by a name or an amount inside it? Some apps do this free, some charge for it, some cap it.
• Odd shapes. An ID card has two sides, a passport has one page that matters, a receipt is long and narrow, a business card should become a contact.
• Where the scans live. Only on the phone, in your own cloud, or on the app maker's servers. That matters most for IDs and tax papers.
• What comes next. Emailing a PDF is easy everywhere. Getting it signed by someone else, with a record of who signed and when, is not.

Six options side by side

Adobe Scan, Genius Scan and CamScanner prices are the App Store or pricing-page figures in US dollars, read in November 2026. App Store prices can differ by country.

Apple's built-in scanner: start here

In Notes, tap the attachments button and choose Scan Documents; in Files, tap More, then Scan Documents; on iOS 26 and later the Preview app has a Scan Documents button too. The camera captures each page by itself when it finds the edges, and Notes can later find a scan by the words in it. It costs nothing and keeps your scans in Apple's apps. What it lacks: no ID or receipt layouts, no business card reading, and nothing beyond Markup for signing.

SignMaster: scan, then sign or send

The SignMaster app uses Apple's document camera and adds modes for ID cards (front and back on one page at real size), passports, book spreads split into two pages, receipts in crisp grayscale, business cards that become SignMaster contacts, and QR codes. Text is read on the phone and tucked invisibly into every PDF, on every plan. After saving, you can sign the scan, send it for signature, save it to Files or copy its text. The trade-offs: you need a SignMaster account, saved scans go to your SignMaster Documents rather than staying only on the phone, there's no Android app, and exports are PDF, JPG or text, not Word.

Adobe Scan: the most complete free scanner

Adobe Scan is free to download and recognizes text so your PDFs are searchable. Its capture types include documents, whiteboards, book pages, forms, ID cards (both sides on one page) and business cards, which you can save to your phone's contacts. Scans are stored in Adobe's cloud. Premium, $9.99 a month on the App Store, adds combining files, compressing, password protection, export to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and more OCR capacity. It also runs on Android, which SignMaster doesn't. Asking other people to sign goes through Acrobat, where a free account can send two e-signature requests every 30 days.

Genius Scan: private by default

Genius Scan's Basic plan is free with unlimited scans and no watermark, and documents are processed and stored on your phone unless you export them. Text recognition, business cards to Contacts, expense reports from receipts, PDF passwords and cloud exports come with Ultra at $39.99 a year. It's the pick if you want a scanner that never needs an account. It doesn't sign documents; its maker points to a separate app, Genius Sign, for that.

CamScanner: many tools, many paywalls

CamScanner covers a lot: ID, book, whiteboard and slide modes, text extraction in 41 languages, conversion to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and apps for iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and the web. Its FAQ says removing the CamScanner watermark, the ID card layout and signatures all need Premium, and basic accounts can run text recognition 10 times. Its privacy policy says it shares limited personal data with advertising partners. See our CamScanner comparison for more.

Microsoft Lens: gone

Microsoft retired Lens in early 2026. It left the App Store on February 9, 2026, and you could scan in it until March 9, 2026; old scans stay readable only while the app is still installed. Microsoft's retirement page recommends the scanner built into the OneDrive app, which saves scans to OneDrive rather than to the phone.

Which one fits

• The odd page, read on screen or emailed: Apple's built-in scanner. Don't install anything.
• IDs, receipts and contracts that need a signature next: SignMaster, where the scan, the signature and the sealed copy live in one place.
• Converting scans to Word or working on Android too: Adobe Scan, with Premium for the conversions.
• You want scans to stay on the phone, with no account: Genius Scan Basic, and Ultra if you need searchable text.
• You already pay for CamScanner and use its conversions daily: stay, but check what its watermark and OCR limits do to your free use.