iScanner: PDF & OCR Scanner Reviews

by MackaySmith

I needed to quickly scan a single sheet of paper. iScanner showed the option to enable a trial of their subscription services, which i deselected. when i continued it enabled a subscription anyways. i do not think that the payment screen showed up, because i also received a call at the same time, but when i went back to iScanner , everything seemed fine. i DID NOT double click the power button and allow face ID to scan my face. this may be partially the fault of apple, but either way, i did not want to pay $10/m and i would not have continued if i knew that was what i was getting. i cancelled my subscription in my settings, but for some reason i cannot get my money back. i only even noticed a subscription because apple emailed me.

this is gross business practice. there is a transparent X in the top left of the screen that allows you to not subscribe, but the toggle to enable the free trail looks like you’re selecting no subscription. i understand why developers need subscriptions, that’s not the issue. the issue is them making it look as though you’re not subscribing even though you are. either way, if i see the charge come through i will dispute it.

by Pittmanab

UNREAL. iScanner offers an option to download and scan up to 10 docs for free until subscription, then when you enter into the first screen it gives an option to elect NOT to do the free trial, which i selected, and then yet when the very next screen loads it enacts a monthly trial membership that now iScanner developers are repeatedly on this thread claiming to NOT BE LIABLE FOR which I'm sure is a true legal loophole of business that they can get away with but SHAME on them for taking people's money and acting like it's not their problem. You can only cancel the subscription through your app subscriptions and iScanner developers specify that they need 1 days notice to cancel a subscription renewal, yet the "free trial's" subscription renewal is listed as today, the same day I started the free trial. Does this make sense to everyone reading yet? There's no free trial. There's never a point of ability for the user to cancel at any point in time before being charged. This is essentially a pay app that is misleading users into downloading and enacting as if it is a free app. Common and evil business these days. Beware. I just want my $10 back.

by Lalalalabbit

When you download iScanner , it says it has a 3-free-day trial. You might think, cool I’ll have 3 FULL days until I cancel it before it renews. Well fine print in my email confirmation just confirmed you only have ONE full day and then you are CHARGED for a renewal (1-month subscription at $9.99). I thought it was strange I was charged, so I did an investigation. They say in the fine print you “won’t be charged for the 3-day trial”— but technically you are if you don’t cancel within 24 hours. Who cancels a subscription BEFORE their FREE TRIAL ENDS? That makes no sense, and if so, then it is MISLEADING. I emailed developer through iTunes app and they just responded with “how to unsubscribe” and didn’t read my email or look at my screenshots, to see that I had already unsubscribed and then deleted the application. How does it make any sense to promote a free 3-day trial, say you won’t charge for it, but then say you have to cancel it within 24 hours to avoid renewal??? CHANGE THE RENEWAL DATE TO WHEN THE 3-day trial ENDS, because either way you look at it you’re trying to trick the users into renewing. I downloaded iScanner on Aug 23, cancelled sometime on the 25th, was still charged. Thanks for nothing!!!

by Giltleprechaun

I’ve had iScanner for years. Because I found it useful, I did pay a one-time upgrade fee several years ago. I loved that I could shift files easily to my Google drive or email files quickly such as when I refinanced my mortgage. I recently updated a number of apps, including this one. I tried to open it this afternoon but it kept crashing, so I deleted and redownloaded iScanner . Imagine my surprise when I discovered that not only were all my previous scans deleted but so was evidence of my previous upgrade! Suddenly I’m being asked for a monthly (or yearly) membership fee?!? A one time payment of $5 or $6 to make my phone into a portable scanner almost as reliable as my HP All-in-One made sense. Paying $50 per year for the same service does NOT. I only had to pay for the printer once; a membership for iScanner will cost more than a scanner/printer in little more than a year. I don’t see that the membership offers me any more functionality than I had before and it certainly costs far more. This seems like a money-grab, not a genuine effort to improve service. I’m feeling cheated and wishing I hadn’t bothered to update iScanner a few days ago.

by Shhfhs

I saw the three-day free trial advertisement and decided it wouldn’t hurt to try it. Upon subscribing I immediately received a bill from Apple services explaining that i had been charged $10. I was shocked, of course, because I had only activated the subscription minutes before, and because I had already cancelled the renewal of the subscription. I did some research to see if there was a cause for this, and a lot of credible sources said that this only occurs if you have applied for the subscription prior. Before downloading it on that day, I had never come in contact with iScanner. I’m sure it’s a great app, but I do not have need for it, nor have I used it since downloading. I tried finding a way to contact Apple about this, but it just ended up becoming frustrating. All I ask for is to be connected with one of your associates who could possibly give me a refund for my purchase, which I did not intend to make. Please get back to me.

by Persian Apricot

I paid $10, two years ago, to purchase iScanner after the free trial version was over. Now, reinstalling iScanner on my phone after getting a new phone, iScanner asks me if I want to go "Pro," and pay either $3.99 per week or something else per month, etc. Why do I not have full access to any of the features such as "E-mail to myself, Save to Google Drive, etc." So you guys just took my $10, let me use iScanner for a while, and now want to charge me a subscription on a WEEKLY basis? You're joking...then why would I recommend iScanner to anyone else because you can use Microsoft One Cloud drive or something and make PDF's as well, and there are alternative sources to make FREE PDF's as well, rather than using iScanner...

Additionally, sometimes when trying to take a photo of the document, the AUTO border detection feature freaks out and is shaky and can't focus on the edges and takes pictures prematurely, cutting off edges of the intended document. Lame...again, what did I pay $10 for?? Not impressed with iScanner at all. Disappointed to say the least :( PLEASE FIX YOUR APP and stop trying to double charge me!

by Uch1da

iScanner itself works okay. Nothing spectacular, but gets the job done as far as a PDF scanner goes.

Having said that, I am a pretty detailed person, and usually don’t “subscribe” to services on accident. Matter of fact, I’m not sure I ever have mistakenly subscribed to a service I didn’t want. As other reviewers have suggested, the button placement combined with Face ID make it VERY easy to agree to a “weekly” subscription for $3.99 per week. I never check my personal email, and randomly I went in and saw a purchase for $8.XX. I started looking into it further - I have been billed weekly since I downloaded iScanner on Sept 5th for $3.99 per week until today, when I finally cancelled it on Jan 24th. Near $80 in total that I didn’t knowingly authorize. Very, very sneaky. Shame on me for not checking my bank account or emails. But, shame on these developers for the “sneaky” button placement and ease of access to a subscription based model of income.

Buyer beware - this service is nowhere near worth $3.99 per week, even if you are aware of it or not. This developer should be banned from iScanner store for the sneaky trick they pulled.

by Furious And Extored

I used this for a while and realized that at some point they started charging me $3.99/week, and I only use it occasionally. I would never recommend this to anyone. I am currently trying to figure out how to entirely uninstall it. DO NOT GET iScanner.

Also - to iScanner Developer... you need to take a business ethics class. Just because you note something somewhere does not make it ok to charge people so much for something. I used iScanner a handful of times back in August and have now paid you $100. And I get that you’re saying it’s all legal, between iScanner Store auto subscription and you providing the information that it is a free trial that will change to a subscription. But how can you possibly justify charging $208/year on a weekly subscription? Shane on you. You may not be legally at risk on this, but you should be ashamed. You can’t control how iScanner Store works, but you control your prices. You should me ashamed of extorting so many people and trying to justify with that scripted legal response. It was a well functioning app, but maybe fix the major billing complaints instead of just giving us one of these —> 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️

by Kl03

Between the non-stop ads and the developer’s relentless pursuit of premium subscriptions, I couldn’t get anything done. I’m no tech genius, but that’s why we have apps to help, right? I also understand the need for revenue. However, if you offer it for free, then let us use it. I didn’t ask you to give me something free, you offered it.
I had 9 documents to scan and convert to a PDF format to send as an email on my iPad. I tried to keep them in one folder, but after 4 or 5 pages, it wouldn’t let me continue without upgrading. I then did them one at a time and individually converted them to PDF format. Again, it stopped me after 5. While attempting all this, I had to go through two ads after every three clicks navigating iScanner .
The pages that I was able to convert were sent to my iPages app. When I went to there to view the pages, all the scanned pages were faded gray and unable to be opened.
Also, be advised, the free 3 day trial requires you to cancel 24 hours previous to the expiration. So, that’s really a 2 day free trial. Read the fine print.
I’ve deleted the scanned pages and iScanner as well. Reviews looked good, but iScanner didn’t come close to expectations.

by 7dk777

I've had iScanner for a few years, the free version that is. It has worked great aside from the ridiculous amount of advertisements up until now. Lately it won't pull up all my pictures, sometimes I'll upload pictures and delete them and they'll be deleted in iScanner and then I'll go to email it and sure enough the pictures I deleted in iScanner are on the emailed pdf but if you look in iScanner it will not show that it is there, then other times it will duplicate some pages in the pdf in its own, to correct it I'll re download it and delete what I need deleted and email it again and it will still be there. The most recent issue I had is that I uploaded pictures from my camera roll and I went in order when I downloaded them; I started at page 1 and went to page 30. When I was done I was scrolling through the pages in my app to make sure I got everything and all the pages were mixed like it would go in the following sequence 3,8,5,1,10,2,30,15etc... when u tried to fix it and move it to the correct spots it would automatically rearrange everything and not move certain pages. Like I said this was the best and easiest scanner app I have used but now I am thinking because I've had it for so long there are now "glitches" messing everything up trying to prompt me to upgrade maybe or maybe iScanner has just gone down hill; I'm not really sure.

by Common Application

The scanner and the possibility of choosing from albums pictures is very good, also the pictures scanned are top notch. The only problem is that the developer let you use iScanner with some restrictions, and every time you touch the screen a reminder to buy the pro pops up which is annoying, also for some reason choosing from email to save into you album cause some problems with the email not recognized, at least in the free version you can not print or save the second page, in order to print or save the second document you have to delete the first one. In order to do this you have to click on the no thanks pop up purchase reminder, then choose the first document you want to delete. As soon as you delete the document another pop up reminder and the no thanks click to proceed is needed again. Do I mention pop up reminder? Two stars for iScanner functionality, taking in account the delete of the first page to print the second one and the email issues, with out mentioning the annoying pop up reminder.

by Icovet

iScanner is a great scanner app: it auto detects borders, creates readable images, and exports them in any format you might wan. However, the free version only lets you scan one page.

My biggest complaint with iScanner is that they are very sneaky about getting you to pay their subscription fee. I understand how apps work; I am pretty good at this point at turning down the “pro” versions of apps when I don’t want to pay for them. With the scanner app, I attempted to do the “free trial” of their pro services so that I could scan a multi-page document. I did his when I first downloaded iScanner , but they charged me $10. I submitted a complaint because I did not need the full app; I felt like I had been tricked; and I wanted my money back. But that’s not a thing that apps generally do, so I obviously didn’t get a refund. I canceled my subscription and deleted iScanner out of frustration.

I recently re-downloaded it because i needed to scan something, and—silly me—totally forgot that this was the same app that duped me before. Thus, the exact same thing happened. I used the free version until I wanted to scan a multi-page document. Clicked on that “free trial” button. And boom, got a $10 charge.

iScanner now has gotten $20 out of me. I think $10/month is too steep for iScanner, especially considering how infrequently people need to scan things.

I must admit that although it has great functions, I am very disappointed.

by LifeBreakingIn

I really liked iScanner, and felt smug last year when everyone was trying to figure out how to upload school work when we went on lockdown. I’d gotten the paid version and used this to upload work for my own students for years, easily dropping stuff into Google docs, classroom, emails, etc. But lately—for months and months now—when I try to scan anything, it WILL NOT LOAD. I have to close iScanner and try again every time. Incredibly frustrating, especially when I need to upload 20 assignments. Each time I try, close, wait as iScanner takes forever to open, try again. It takes FOREVER. It’ll just spin and say loading but it never does, I have to shut it down and start over. Same kind of thing happens other times, the photo album won’t load at all, etc. I’m not excited to see that they’ve moved to a subscription model now. I’m glad I never tried deleting and reinstalling I guess. I cannot recommend anyone iScanner.

by TI Robb

This has officially become my favorite app... very easy to use and it’s been perfect for remote learning. I’m able to store my kids assignments in one place that’s easy to get to and I can upload their work/email to their teachers.
However, I recently updated my phone and all of a sudden there are ads popping up in the middle of me taking pictures of a document or trying to email a document and this NEVER happened before and I’m paying monthly for the scanner pro.... usually when you are paying that helps avoid any unwanted ads and like I said I never had this issue before. I don’t know what the heck is going on but please find a way to stop this ish because I don’t want to download no word puzzle games etc. if I want to do that I already know how to go to iScanner Store I don’t need an ad to direct me there.
Thanks!! From your happy customer with a frown (yes a frown stop the ads).

by Dr. Henry Indiana Jones

I drive truck and use this to scan in my paperwork. I’ve already scanned up to 60 pages. For the most part it’s super easy to use. Color or black and white, with other variations which is great. Can email or text, .pdf and some other options so that’s all great. The one thing that can be irritating is WHAT is scans. Sometimes the whole page exactly how you’d like it most times a partial page. Slanted, half the page, a small corner, and no matter what I do I can’t get it to recognize the whole page. So I spend sometime editing all 60 pages or most of them anyway.

I also use for my crafts when I want certain images copied for printing. Works great for that! Same scan and edit issues but I’ve been getting by.

I’ll continue to use, just wish it was more accurate.

by B4Rev

So iScanner is awesome. It gives you plenty of options and crops the documents almost perfectly every time. I use it to scan homework for school. You just need to make sure there is a good background contrast for it to work well which is understandable. I’ve only run into an issue once where it didn’t scan properly and I do use it a lot. The only major issue I have with it is if you don’t have premium you it will sometimes pop up with an in app purchase to scan your fingerprint and buy it. I almost accidentally purchased it the first time it did that but I caught it. Without premium you can only scan 3 documents before you have to delete them. You can save them to your pictures then delete them and continue scanning. Premium is definitely worth it though especially if you do a lot of scanning. It’s about 5 dollars for 1 month, 9 dollars for 3 months or 12 dollars for a year.

by APKanga

iScanner is amazing. It made home buying so much easier. I collected all the documents I would need for me and my husband to purchase a home. I scanned all of them with iScanner into a folder. No matter where I was when a document was requested I had access to it. Our lender kept asking what I was doing. I was able to have the documents back within a few minutes if getting off the phone. We were able to close in record time.

Quick tip: This may be obvious, but I f you need statements from an account you can take a screenshot and than put it into the Scanner app. This allows you to send them immediately. It worked great with paystubs and bank statements.

by Very Happy Organizer!

Just downloaded iScanner thinking the free version would only let me scan the document as in many other free scanning apps. Wrong! I’ve been able to scan, adjust the color in many different ways and formats, sign the document ( with size adjustments and replacement), and have the options to send to an email, fax it, save to photo roll, send to document folder, and I believe one or 2 more options of moving the document all on the free version and that’s just what I’ve come across in the last 3 min. I can’t wait to download the full version! I’ve been recommended other scanning apps in the past and this one surpasses them by far! I will now be recommending iScanner to all the people who referred other apps along with new people! Thank you!

by Acts20:21

For a smartphone app that scans, I’m thrilled. I scanned an assignment straight from my phone to my email and submitted it with no problems. You can change the contrast as well as other color and white balance settings. You can also send as a JPG, which is helpful as that is a very versatile file format. I just needed the PDF. If you are on the go, iScanner will be great! Of course, it takes a minute to get everything situated with what you scan (ex. You may have to align the blue dots over the edges, as it doesn’t always line up exactly with the page). However, that is minor and is actually helpful on account of using a camera instead of a dedicated scanning mechanism.

With that being said, if you need a high quality scan that has a high dpi, for sure use a regular copier, as this scanner entirely will rely on your phones camera sensor. In any case, great app and I thank God for it!

by Jstamps91

I’ve been an iPhone user for about 10 years, and this is my first ever written review on an app. Don’t get me wrong, there are hundreds of great apps in iScanner Store, but the Scanner App is a utility that, I feel, deserves some recognition for truly getting it right. I only installed iScanner a few months ago (previously used Adobe Scan), and I immediately fell in love with it. These guys have literally thought of everything, from the high-level “categorical” scan options, down to the fine grained details seen with the auto-magnifier view when cropping the edge of your document. iScanner does exactly what it should do, without feeling overcrowded with unnecessary features that should be left to your document/photo editing app anyways. Thank you for making life just a little bit more convenient, it is appreciated!

by "Free" Trial Is A SCAM

When I downloaded iScanner , I was met with a pop up that told me to I had to sign up for a free trial in order to use iScanner . I signed up for the free trial, but was charged over four dollars the minute I signed up! Apparently, when I signed up for the “free” trial they decided to charge me the minute I did! So, I immediately sent a message to the customer service asking for them to resolve the issue, and refund me, but I was instead met with a generic email that told me they couldn’t “control” refunds. They then handed me off to Apple and I filled out my report, clicked the button, and immediately was met with an automated response that proclaimed “item not eligible for refund”. Be warned, the free trial that required to use iScanner immediately charges you the weekly subscription fee of over four dollars! And that four dollars only gives you a week’s worth of use! I am extremely dissatisfied with the service and the absolute SCAM I have encountered. BEWARE OF SCAM!!!

by Jugulae

iScanner is such a swindler!

I downloaded iScanner on Nov 1st 2018 because it was for free.
However while I was using it, I accidently touched subscribe button which was just a pop up window during scanning! It was meant to make the users accidently touch the subscribe button like me. It is just popping up without any context and notice. So, I accidently paid $3.99 at that time for the first time. I even couldn't read what the 3.99 for because it was an ACCIDENT.

I wanted to find unsubscribe menu but there is no menu in iScanner!

I felt something was going wrong. I eventually found an email address at the bottom and sent an email saying I want to unsubscribe. But they sent me an auto reply saying that they can't do anything.

So I deleted iScanner expecting if I delete it it will be automatically unsubscribed.

However what I found today was
What I subscribed(even without noticing) was a weekly plan which charge me $3.99 weekly. It was paid even I deleted iScanner and sent email saying I want to unsubscribe it. Till yesterday it was charged for 11 times!!! Are you kidding me? Almost $44?? I can buy a printer and a scanner with $44!!!!!!!!!!!!

Give me my money back!!!!!
I will take action whatever I can to get the money back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shame on you who published iScanner!!!!

by Alecks C.

Contacted support after original review letting them know that completely broke the efficiency of iScanner . Received canned responses on how they assumed their app worked. Obviously they pushed the update without testing.

Here are the list of things that I personally have noticed that should be fixed:

Saving scans and editing:
When scanning a document if you don’t change the edits the document will be saved as the original photo scan, not what iScanner shows in the editing screen. Workaround: every time I scan something I have to play with the contrast or brightness to make the image save as the smoothed out pdf.

Dropbox upload:
When uploading to dropbox I now have to “Share” with an email address. This should not be a required field and should be optional. I understand the convenience of being able to share the document, but not the requirement. This is also a security risk because users could share with emails they don’t intend to just to get through the required process. Workaround: made up a nonsense email address that requires 2 extra clicks for every document I upload. This adds up because I can only upload one document to dropbox at a time. (See below).

Dropbox upload of multiple files:
When I try to upload more than one file to dropbox it only uploads the “first file” selected and no others.

by Olivialiviaa

iScanner is a total sneak. They advertise as being a free app/download, but once you install iScanner onto your phone, a second pop up window appears asking for your permission once again to download. What you don’t realize is that during this second time around request, they are actually asking for you to authorize their permission to charge you $3.99 per week after the first three days of use. I find this completely outrageous and entirely misleading to the general consumer. The use of technology/pop window technology that mimics the guest experience from just moments before is entirely misleading and might as well be labeled theft or unauthorized use of my funds. My advise: do not download iScanner under the assumption that it is “fee” and be vigilant when reading their fine print.

by Ssdfgpa

I just downloaded iScanner today but I fell in love with that pretty quickly. I don’t get along well with paper but I have a wonderful electronic filing system. I think this will work with that and I might be able to scan a piece of paper and throw it away that’s improving my life more than I can possibly say.

But— you knew that was coming didn’t you?—I can’t figure out what the deal is when it tries to ask me to get scanner Pro (and I decide to try to get scanner Pro) and it won’t let me pay. Very irritating.

I also can’t find out any specs on why this refused to scan another document. I assume you can only scan so many in any given day. That’s why I was willing to go with the pro, but iScanner just wouldn’t let me do that. So that’s why I’m saying it’s almost great.

by Massachusetts Kid

I was looking for an app for my iPhone that would enable me to scan documents, save them to my phone, and send them to others as an email, a text, and I believe other delivery options. I am a retired attorney living in Southwest Florida. In my opinion, iScanner is amazing!! So much simpler than feeding documents into your scanner or even sending them to a third-party by facsimile. You just hold the phone over the paper you want to scan, and once it detects the borders, it takes a picture of (I.e., scans) the document for you. You can scan additional pages, group them as a single document, and title that doc when you save it to your smart phone!!

by Optimistic Facebook User

Thanks the the I scanner app, I now have a tiny scanner with me where ever I go for business. I can take pictures of physical documents and iScanner gives you the option to either make them to a PDF or J something, forgot what it was lol. But yeah! Very pleased with iScanner so far and may continue to stick around. You pay $3.99 a week which is not bad and if ever you’re hurting in the pockets, you can go to settings and unsubscribe anytime and come back when you’re financially better off. Thank you guys for this wonderful app! I’m a happy user. Ps: the conversion wait time was less than a minute and I was impressed!

by ClicheName

TL;DR
Fantastic app! Pro features would be better if it was purchased one time even if it was a little more cost.

For the small bit I used iScanner , it worked flawlessly and was not horribly limited to a free user. My problem is the subscription based model of iScanner . As an individual and not a business professional that needs this functionality constantly, I am unable to support the developer by making a one time purchase. Due to my own human laziness, I don’t think I could remember and bother to subscribe and unsubscribe for the brief instance that I used it.