SwiftScan - Document Scanner Reviews

Thank you for making a really nice app. Mainly, I am looking for a scan/ocr app to easily apply ocr to existing documents on iOS. this app does it and does it very well: powerful ocr compared to my experience with scanner pro and scan hero. I love the in-app text search after ocr.

I wish for a more robust import feature, where I can easily import in this app from all three sources (camera scan capture, existing photos, existing documents) into one file, like PDFpen scan+ by Smile did very well before they discontinued ocr. Compiling scans from different sources into one file is currently a pain.

For your R&D reference, the first step in my workflow is compiling the scan from different sources like hand-written notes, photos and existing docs (add, remove, reorder pages and make light edit). Then ocr my compilation, export the file, create a hyper-link to the file, reference that link on calendar, continue to work and add to the file at a later time from again the same three sources of camera, photos and documents. It will be so nice if I can make this app my one and only stop in compiling my scans/notes. I appreciate any insights and tips.

I'm a 75 year old housewife, keeping track of our expenses by scanning receipts into .pdf's usually on my iPhone 6S, then sending to iCloud Drive on my MacBook Pro (late 2013). My laptop is in the shop for repair. It will take at least a week to get it back. I continue to scan, now with iPad Pro, sending to iCloud Drive. Scanbot is even better on iPad Pro than iPhone. I am keeping up with the bookkeeping and filing.😌
It might be nice to be able to list store names which are often used, so one could select, rather than retype each time. But if that never happens, I will continue to appreciate Scanbot with all its bells and whistles.
Also, Apple is hinting that Bento will no longer be compatible with the upcoming systems. I dream of a companion APP with Scanbot, that would automatically add my scans to a Spreadsheet, with ability to open any actual scan, as well as sort the various columns in the spreadsheet. I know that is dreaming large, but is that ever needed.
Thank you for your good work.
eHw

I’m most likely one of the many iPhone users to try every last productivity app SwiftScan Store has to offer. For me personally I have to scan and organize dozens of documents for work. I’ve played around with every scanning app, file manager, and general PDF management app in SwiftScan Store and let me tell you Scanbot does the job of at least 3 or 4 apps combined. The quality of the scans are amazing, the file management features are incredible, sharing options, markup, etc all top notch. Security was a huge plus also(nothing is stored on their servers, you have the option to password encrypt any file you please. Throw in the fact it’s a fax machine with very reasonably priced in app credits and what you got is a solid, reliable, secure powerhouse of a productivity app! Would highly recommend to anyone looking for this type of app.

Have used SwiftScan for years to keep track of receipts for business and it has been everything I could need. It has been amazing. This last month something I was promoted to buy an upgrade and locked out of use of SwiftScan . It appeared that in order to access the use of SwiftScan and to recover previous scan I would need to purchase an upgrade. This issue was compounded by the fact that, first I’m not sure why I have to buy it b/c it was working finely to this pint and second, every time I tap on any storage options there is an error message so even if I did want to purchase it, I can’t. It at least three days of very concerned on/off searching to figure out how to regain control of SwiftScan . I did eventually figure out how to do this, but am no longer anywhere as enthusiastic about SwiftScan. To hold my 7 months worth of tax receipts hostage as a marketing tool is a very low tactic.

Bottom line, be prepared for a hard sell into their premium tier. SwiftScan seems to be more about making money for the developer than the ease of use for the consumer.

Granted I haven’t even gotten an opportunity to use SwiftScan to the capacity of my own choosing as of yet...I’m still incredibly disappointed that what looked like the introductory page, (showing off all of the features and whatnot) was actually a sorry way for this company to get the customer to buy $8.99+ packages. I’m only 29, and I’m not stupid, but I’ve been extremely sick for a somewhat extended period of time...so yeah, I don’t always have the time or the brain power for tutorials; however, I am SO GLAD that I happened to glance down near the very bottom of that “introductory page” and see those price increases with each extra feature.
*Stop patting yourselves on the back for putting the prices in a pretty, unique color from the rest of the page, because you lose the ability to congratulate yourselves when you literally decrease the font by 3 or 4 points*
I’ll still use you if your product seems to work well, (although I’ve already noticed that the “free version” charges very high amounts to purchase the credits necessary to use the fax feature.

When I first installed ScanBot I just needed a tool for capturing receipts in a user friendly way. What I ended up was much more. SwiftScan auto detects when the receipt or document is in fully in the camera view and then takes the picture. SwiftScan talks to every cloud storage system including OneDrive. It is flexible in how you name documents and manage them. It is visually beautiful, flexible, stable, and easy to use. This tool makes travel, purchases tracking, and expense reports much easier. The pro features are also worth the in app purchase.

UPDATE: The new version has taken a perfect tool and made it better. The new file naming is fast, flexible, and intuitive. I scan things for many reasons. I can now easily include the receipt reason as part of the file name.

This is absolutely the best scanning app out there, and I’ve been using it for years in pro mode after paying like $4 once. Now they’ve abruptly switched to a subscription model, which is fair and I totally support it, but there was no transition. Yesterday I was doing just fine with Scanbot, but today I can’t do the same stuff without paying up.

The company’s blog says all features that I previously paid for will still work and I’ll only need to start a subscription if I want new features, but yesterday I was using folders, and today I can’t because it’s apparently a new feature since the folders look a little different.

The iOS Notes app has since become able to scan documents pretty much just as well. I ignored this before since I’d already paid for SwiftScan, but now I find myself back in evaluation mode and I’ll have to consider weaning back to Notes since it’s getting a nice update soon.

Overall, this is my favorite scanning app. It’s my go-to first choice. Scanbot is quick, nice-looking, and handles multiple use cases. The border detection is quite good, and smart naming and the ability to auto-upload to cloud services are both really nice.

The white background scanning capability doesn't seem to really work all that well (at least when last I tried). However, this is not a huge deal, as previous to this, I just got used to putting on a contrasty surface to scan anyway.

My only one real complaint is that the iCloud sync causes documents to sometimes reappear after I delete them. iCloud Drive sync issues aren't really something that developers have a lot of control over.

It's obvious that the developers of ScanBot made user experience a priority. And that's what makes this my default scanning app (along with the excellent scanning accuracy of course).

I do wish it would allow single page scans to be saved as JPEG without having to save to camera roll, as Evernote Scannable can do.

In the past, I found the OCR to be completely useless, but in more recent testing, I found that it's either been vastly improved or I was just really lucky with it for a change.

Scanbot is my choice for best Scan App currently available across entire App Store. I began using Genius Scan some 3-4 years ago and found it to be clearly a capable app, I also worked fairly extensively with Scannable. Yet in using both Apps above, each of which were adequate for the basic task at hand, but only Scanbot offered me an incredibly easy and intuitive interface while still accommodating a power user looking for a large set of features in the apps ability to connect more extensions than I could ever use, and offers an endless array of connectivity solutions satisfying the most
discriminating power user.
Skip the learning curve which I dealt with and go with scanbot
from out of the gates.

I’ve been using SwiftScan since the scanbot days, not sure why they decided to swap the name so many times but to each their own. Let me just say functionally SwiftScan probably can’t be beat if your looking for a scan app with loads of amazing features and don’t mind paying a premium, this is it.

That being said, the premium is where I draw the line I paid for the pro version a long time ago and now I’m told that a need a subscription? And $4/mo at that. Frankly, there are free apps that fit the same bill and don’t come with the price tag. This was a ludicrous money grab by this company, who’s probably feeling the heat because Apple is stepping up their game in the photo scanning business.

Ultimately I would not recommend purchasing SwiftScan because subscriptions always go up in price and for what SwiftScan does it’s simply not worth the money.

I am a historian who does a lot of research online. I frequently run across large PDF documents that are scans of older, public domain, books that have not been OCR’d. Scanbot is one of the only iOS apps that I have found that allows me to take those already existing PDF documents, sometimes hundreds of pages in length, and OCR them. The process is a little clunky, but it works and works reliability every time. (The only other iOS app that did this that I know was discontinued last year, and even then it did not work reliably.) This feature also alllows me to OCR documents that I scanned in years ago myself and make them searchable. So kudos to the developers for including this capability.

So after nothing but snark and non-answers from customer service, my app FINALLY decided to unlock itself today!!! Luckily I left my folders in my iCloud, so all of my hundreds of important documents were recovered inside the application! BUT the application updated a few months ago and when it did, it erased my ‘Pro’ settings. I had paid for a year and that was deleted. So now that I finally have gotten it to work again, all on my own, btw, I am hesitant to pay more than the smallest amount because I do not want my money taken again, just for SwiftScan to roll back my payments and act as though I have never paid again. Then I have to pay over and over. It is ludicrous. I would delete completely if it wasn’t BY FAR, the best scanner app on the market! I guess I have to draw a line at where ‘the best’ doesn’t matter as much as ‘working correctly without stealing my money’

I bought SwiftScan a couple years ago and was very happy with the functionality so much so that I recommended it to several colleagues.
In the last two weeks though SwiftScan crashes within seconds of opening and I am unable to access any of my scans on the phone. I sent an email to support via their support portal and within a day I got a very detailed response with steps to try.
Ended up deleting and reinstalling and that fixed the problem.
Saving grace was that I had auto backup turned on from the beginning so my previously scanned files were safe.
Very happy once more that my fav business related app is working again.

The automatic scanning algorithm used is very good in that scans are taken quickly when aligned. Although, if you compare to “Genius Scan” you’ll see the algorithm used is little to quick and does not let the user see always when the item to be scanned is aligned and can cause multiple mistakes to happen. Although I’m really liking the dark text quality in black & white scans. Scanbot’s fax pricing is questionable. Both Genius Fax and Scanbot offer 10 pages for $6.99. But Genius Fax offers also 1 page for $.99 cents. It appears the faxing sources are the same, but Scanbot is purposely trying to force you to buy the higher priced $6.99 option to profit the provider and themselves. Additionally, Genius Fax offers the user an option for a fax number and Scanbot doesn’t.

I have been using SwiftScan for over 1 1/2 years ever since my wife passed away and I scanned all the death certificates and all the documents and everything needed also this last year I got sick and had all of my medical records scanned my Covid tests my vaccine records blood tests health reports doctors reports all the things that I need to be in contact with including all the bills that I need to pay for medical expenses had several hundred documents scanned in and sorted. Then all of the sudden the application locked up put a red screen when I restarted the iPhone all my documents were gone and there is no back up. Do not trust this application these were some of the only copies of my documents that I had and I just assumed they were backed up to the cloud including a property that I had just purchased and I urgently need to get a document to the bank for tax purposes and it’s all gone

Using in iPhone 7 running iOS 12.3.1. Upon installing this latest version SwiftScan launched to a black screen and stayed black. I forced-quit SwiftScan and launched again and again it launched to a black screen. After letting it just sit for about a minute the black screen went away and SwiftScan functions fine. Maybe SwiftScan was updating all the scans I had stored to work with this new version? Seems to be faster than prior version as developer says. I noticed a subscription option in SwiftScan but I seem to retain all the same full app functionality without paying for that. This is, imo, still the best scanning app available on iOS.

Old Pro user here. My scans are automatically OCR’d. If I search in the text pane of the document info the text is found. If I search from the search field on the document list screen the text is not found. The text is found from Spotlight search. It’s as if Scanbot is only searching document names and not text within the document, even though the manual states it should be searching within the document.

Edit: I was able to fix the issue by force closing SwiftScan and disabling then re-enabling automatic OCR. I edited my original review (above) but my initial review went through anyway. I also received a response from the developer, which is greatly appreciated. Thanks for the great app and support!

I really didn’t expect that SwiftScan would become a central part of my life. Initially I bought it to scan receipts for an insurance claim. These days I use it almost daily as my primary document scanning and filing tool. Now that it has fax capability it’s replaced another app!

One thing I wish for, but haven’t asked for yet, is the ability to combined two or more PDFs, or other types, into a single file. Would simplify tasks such as faxing docs from multiple sources in the cases where I’m not scanning multiple pages at once. Would also allow me to delete another party’s app!

Keep up the great work!!

I wrote these guys because I paid for the OCR, but couldn't find a way to use it with my flatbed scanner. I explained what I was trying to do, and they got back to me (on Easter Sunday, no less) to tell me how to do it. Their email was pleasant, easy to follow, and worked like a charm. (I wasn't even expecting a response).

Kudos to the developer! The text recognition is probably on par with Acrobat DC (depending on the quality of your original document), but it doesn't retain formatting as well. Ultimately, I got way more than I expected for $5 vs around $149/year for a subscription to Acrobat.

I'm very pleased with the purchase, and recommend SwiftScan to anyone who needs to archive paper documents in a search-friendly way.

Scanning documents is instantaneous, and it is done on your phone! I really like that I can simply grab my phone to take a picture of an important document and it turns into a PDF. Plus, you can make it color, black and white, adjust the crop, and more. No more scanners, USB's, and running to the nearest office store to pay to have a document scanned. I bought the pro version because I wanted to combine multiple documents into one PDF (a function not available in free version). I also got a coupon to send to a friend who will also get the pro version for free. I am very pleased with SwiftScan.

If you want to read the blog post on why the developers switched to a subscription model, you’ll find a list of rationalizations that don’t hold water, narcissistic boasting, and some mention of how they’re still better than some imagined evil straw-man developers. Then they actually say “this is more than fair,” as if they aren’t biased by their financial concerns. It comes off as quite out of touch.

They say people who paid for pro features in the past are grandfathered in, and that’s good, but there is no clear and visible language stating that. I had to go to their responses to these reviews and their blog to see that.

Ultimately, the reason I’m upset is the feeling no amount of logical arguments against it can silence: a feeling of instability. You think you buy some software and can use it for years, but this sudden switch—without warning—reminds you that anything you think you bought and own can be ripped away from you on a developer’s whim. Especially in an age of automatic updates in the background, where you have no chance to read release notes until it’s too late.

I have nothing against developers getting the pay they deserve for a good product, but I thought I already opted in to a price I thought was fair for my individual use case and how long I estimated the software would remain useful.

Scanning documents is instantaneous, and it is done on your phone! I really like that I can simply grab my phone to take a picture of an important document and it turns into a PDF. Plus, you can make it color, black and white, adjust the crop, and more. No more scanners, USB's, and running to the nearest office store to pay to have a document scanned. I bought the pro version because I wanted to combine multiple documents into one PDF (a function not available in free version). I also got a coupon to send to a friend who will also get the pro version for free. I am very pleased with SwiftScan.

Scanbot is my fourth and favorite document scanning app. It finds page edges more reliably than DocScan, Docr or Scanner Pro. When it does miss, the manual cropping control is steadier than Scanner Pro, which was prone to shifting as my finger came off of the screen.

The automatic contrast and brightness adjustment usually yields sharp, easily-printed documents, with few grey areas or extraneous dots to slow inkjet printers to a crawl. ID cards with photos, though, often need manual adjustments to make the text and photo good at the same time.

Scanbot does not correct distortion from wavy or folded documents. This is only a rare issue for me, but your needs might differ.