Best PDF Scanner App for iPhone: 7 Options Compared

Picking the best PDF scanner app for iPhone starts with an awkward fact: your iPhone already has one. The scanner inside Notes and Files handles a one-off page for free. A dedicated app earns its spot when you scan often, scan 10 pages at a time, or need the text inside a scan to be searchable.

Below are 7 options, our own included. We make Scanpaper, so keep that in mind as you read. Everything said about the other apps comes from their US App Store listings as they read on October 22, 2026.

PDF scanner apps for iPhone at a glance

App	Developer (as listed)	Free tier (as listed)	Standout features (as listed)
Scanpaper	Artmvstd SIA	Up to 3 documents, unlimited pages each, small “Scanned with Scanpaper” footer on PDFs	Auto capture, ID card mode with front and back on one page (Pro), on-device OCR (Pro), no account
Notes and Files	Apple (built into iOS)	Free, nothing to install	Automatic capture, signatures through Markup in Notes
Adobe Scan	Adobe Inc.	“Free to download”; Premium subscription described as edit, export, combine, compress and OCR	Magic eraser for thumbs, shadows and stains; scans save to Adobe Document Cloud
Genius Scan	The Grizzly Labs	“Free to use for as long as you want”; optional Plus plan	Batch scanning, on-device processing, merging and splitting
Scanner Pro	Readdle Technologies Limited	Free with in-app purchases; sharing scans “completely free”	Searchable PDFs, signing and form filling, iCloud sync
iScanner	BP Mobile LLC	Free with in-app purchases; “iScanner Pro unlocks all scanner features”	OCR in 20+ languages, ID and passport copies, AI assistant
CamScanner	INTSIG Information Co., Ltd	Free download; subscription for “unlimited access to all features”	ID mode, OCR, e-signatures, DOC and XLS formats

Ratings, prices and in-app purchase lists change often. The figures below are what each listing showed on October 22, 2026.

The 7 best PDF scanner apps for iPhone, one by one

1. Scanpaper

Scanpaper opens to its own camera, draws the page outline live, and takes the shot when the page holds still. You can switch auto capture off and use the shutter instead. Turn the page and it catches the next one, so a whole stack lands in one PDF.

Before you export, you can pick a filter (Original, Auto, Grayscale, B&W, Lighten or No Shadow), crop, rotate, and drag pages into order. Markup has a pen, a highlighter, a black-out tool and text, and you can sign with a drawn signature. There’s no account and no cloud: scans stay on the phone until you share them.

The free tier keeps up to 3 documents with unlimited pages each, and free PDFs carry a small grey “Scanned with Scanpaper” line in the corner. Pro is a subscription with a free trial. It removes the footer and the document limit, and adds on-device OCR, searchable PDFs, ID card and passport modes, compression for email, PDF passwords and app lock.

Best for: multi-page documents, ID copies, and anyone who’d rather not make an account. It’s also on Android.

2. Notes and Files (built into iOS)

If you scan a page twice a year, start here. In Notes, open a note, tap the Attachment (paperclip) button, then Scan Documents. In Files, tap the More button and choose Scan Documents, then pick a folder and tap Save.

Auto mode captures the page on its own, or you can tap the shutter. In Notes you can sign a scan through Markup, then Signature. Apple’s support page says iOS 26 adds flash and filter choices while scanning.

Our iPhone scanner to PDF guide walks through each step and where the file ends up.

Best for: one-off scans that cost nothing.

3. Adobe Scan

The listing names the app “Adobe Scan: PDF & Doc Scanner,” from Adobe Inc., rated 4.9 from 1.6M ratings. It lists scanning receipts, IDs, notes, business cards and whiteboards, a Magic eraser that removes thumbs, shadows, stains and creases, and a Straighten tool for pages that come out curved. OCR turns words in your scans into searchable, editable text.

The listing says scans are saved automatically to Adobe Document Cloud. It describes the app as free to download, and the Premium subscription as “Edit, export, combine, compress & OCR scans.” It also mentions raising OCR capacity from 5 to 100 pages, and the in-app purchase list ran from $3.99 to $69.99.

Best for: people already in Acrobat. The listing says subscriptions work across Scan, Reader and Acrobat on the web.

4. Genius Scan

The listing calls it “Scanner App: Genius Scan,” from The Grizzly Labs, rated 4.9 from 1.4M ratings. It says the app is “free to use for as long as you want,” with an optional Genius Scan Plus plan for more features. Genius Cloud is a separate subscription for backup and sync.

Listed features include batch scanning, distortion correction, shadow removal, document merging and splitting, and on-device document processing. Features the listing marks as Plus include text extraction, searchable PDFs, Face ID locking and PDF passwords. In-app purchases ran from $1.99 to $49.99.

Best for: a scanner you plan to keep using for free. Our Scanpaper vs Genius Scan comparison goes deeper.

5. Scanner Pro

“Scanner Pro - Scan to PDF” comes from Readdle Technologies Limited and is rated 4.9 from 337K ratings. The listing says it scans documents, receipts, IDs, books and photos with automatic edge detection and perspective correction, and that it removes shadows.

It lists OCR, converting any scan into a searchable PDF, adding a signature, filling out forms, PDF passwords, and export to PDF, Word, PowerPoint or JPG. It also lists translation, fax and iCloud sync across your devices. Sharing scans by email or with any app is described as “completely free,” and Scanner Pro Plus purchases ran from $3.99 to $59.99.

Best for: people who want the same scans on iPhone and iPad through iCloud.

6. iScanner

The listing is “iScanner: PDF Document Scanner,” sold by BP Mobile LLC, rated 4.8 from 1.4M ratings. It lists OCR in 20+ languages, signing, form filling, redaction, merging and splitting, and modes for secure copies of passports, ID cards and driver’s licenses. An AI assistant can summarize, translate or rewrite documents.

The listing says documents stay on the device by default, with PIN or Face ID lock and PDF passwords, plus cloud sync and a web version. It says “iScanner Pro unlocks all scanner features.” The subscription list showed a “1 week Pro 100Gb storage” option with a free trial, and in-app purchases ran from $3.99 to $20.99.

Best for: people who want AI tools inside the scanner. See Scanpaper vs iScanner for a side-by-side.

7. CamScanner

“CamScanner - PDF Scanner App” comes from INTSIG Information Co., Ltd and is rated 4.8 from 2M ratings. The listing describes OCR, adding your own e-signature, a mode built for ID documents, and scanning multiple pages into one document. It names DOC, DOCX, XLS and XLSX among supported formats.

You can upload scans to Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote and OneDrive, per the listing. It says the download is free and a subscription gives “unlimited access to all features.” Premium items in the in-app purchase list ran from $4.99 to $69.99, next to a one-page fax at $0.99.

Best for: people who work with Office files alongside their scans. Our Scanpaper vs CamScanner page compares the two.

How to choose a PDF scanner app for iPhone

A PDF scanner app on iPhone is worth installing when the built-in scanner starts costing you time. Notes and Files scan for free and capture automatically, which covers a single letter, a permission slip or a one-page form. The gap shows up with volume and with text: a 12-page lease, a month of receipts you want to search by store name, or an ID that a rental form wants as front and back on one page.

Dedicated apps handle those with auto or batch capture, OCR that turns a scan into searchable text, and modes built for IDs. The tradeoff is the free tier. Every third-party app on this list is free to download and lists in-app purchases, so check what the free tier caps (documents, OCR pages, a footer on exports) before you scan anything important.

Match the app to the job:

• One page, once in a while: Notes or Files. It’s free and already installed.
• Multi-page documents: an app with auto capture, so you only turn pages. Scanpaper captures when the page holds still; Genius Scan lists batch scanning, and Adobe Scan lists bulk scanning. Our guide to scanning multiple pages into one PDF covers reordering and adding pages later.
• Searchable text (OCR): Scanpaper Pro runs OCR on the phone, offline. Adobe Scan, Genius Scan (Plus), Scanner Pro, iScanner and CamScanner all list OCR. For a single photo, the free image to text tool reads it in your browser.
• ID and passport copies: Scanpaper’s ID card mode (Pro) puts both sides on one page. CamScanner and iScanner list ID modes too. The ID card and passport guide covers what forms usually ask for.
• Privacy, no account: Scanpaper has no sign-up and no cloud. Genius Scan lists on-device processing, and iScanner says it keeps documents on the device by default.
• Small files for email: Scanpaper Pro compresses on export, and Adobe’s Premium lists compression. The free compress PDF tool shrinks a file you already have.

How to scan your first document with Scanpaper

Here’s the whole flow for a multi-page document, start to finish:

1. Install Scanpaper and open it. There’s no account to create.
2. Start a new scan. The camera opens in Document mode and draws the page outline live.
3. Hold the phone over the page. Auto capture takes the shot when the page holds still, so you only need to turn pages.
4. Pick a filter (Auto, B&W or No Shadow work well for printed pages), crop or rotate if needed, and drag pages into order in the pages grid.
5. Export as a PDF at fit to scan, A4 or Letter, then share it, print it, or save it to Files.

On the free tier, the PDF carries a small “Scanned with Scanpaper” line in the corner. If you need to fold a photo or two into the same file later, the photo to PDF tool handles that in the browser.

How we put this list together

We read each third-party app’s US App Store listing on October 22, 2026 and wrote down what it states: developer, listed features, rating count and in-app purchases. We didn’t run side-by-side scan tests on the other apps, so this list makes no claims about which one has the most accurate OCR.

Scanpaper’s entry comes from its own feature list. It sits first because this is our site, and its free-tier limits are spelled out above so you can judge it on the same terms as the rest.