The ability to automatically scan documents will come in handy both in business and in personal situations.

But if you can’t access your computer to use the Windows scanning app, you might be wondering if your phone can be used.

Fortunately, you can learn how to scan on iPhone with the below process.

How to scan a document using the Notes app’s scanning feature on iPhone

  1. Open notes.
  2. Select an existing note or create a new one.
  3. Click on the camera icon in the central horizontal bar.
  4. Select Scan Documents.
  5. Place the document in front of the camera.
  6. Choose Keep Scan when you have one you are satisfied with.
  7. Click Save once all pages have been scanned.
  8. Share or save the scanned document.

Our guide continues below with more information on how to scan to iPhone, including photos of these steps.

We all know how hard it is to keep track of paper documents. They get wasted, damaged, and generally hard to deal with.

But what if there was a way to scan and save documents so that you could always have them with you and never worry about losing them again?

Well, there! The Notes app on your iPhone has a built-in document scanning feature that makes it quick and easy to scan any physical document and save it as a PDF. You do not need any additional apps or software to use this feature.

In this article, we will show you step by step how to scan to iPhone using Document Scan feature in Notes app to scan and save any document on your iPhone. Let’s Begin!

Read our guide on how to leave your iPhone screen on if you’re having trouble using your device before the screen turns off.

How to Work with Scanned Documents in iPhone Notes App (Photo Guide)

The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 13 running iOS 15.5. These steps will also work for most other iPhone models with iOS 15.

Please note that the document scanning feature on iPhone is part of the Notes app, so if you previously uninstalled this app, you will need to download it again from the App Store.

Step 1: Open the Notes app on your iPhone.

First of all, you need to open the Notes app on your iPhone. You can do this by clicking on the notes icon on the home screen. Usually you don’t need to download the app as it comes with iOS. If you can’t find it, you may need to search the App Store for it.

Open the Notes app

Step 2: Create a new note or open an existing note.

Once you are in the Notes app, you will need to create a new note or open an existing one. To do this, click on the small icon in the lower right corner of the screen, which looks like a pencil on a piece of paper.

New scanned documents on iPhone will be added as new notes on the device.

Step 3: Tap the camera icon in the lower left corner of the screen or above the keyboard.

Once you create a new note or open an existing one, you will see a camera icon on the bottom left of the screen. There are a lot of icons here, but you’ll want to tap the camera icon.

By clicking on the camera icon, you will see three options: “Select a photo or video”, “Take a photo or video”, and “Scan documents”. Click Scan documents.

How to scan iPhone documents

Step 4: Place the document in front of the camera.

Once you click on Scan Documents, you will be taken to the iPhone camera. From here, you need to place your document in front of the camera so that it is fully visible on the screen.

When you move the document, you will notice that a yellow border appears around the edges of the document. This is the application’s way of detecting the document and making sure it is scanned correctly.

You can take a picture of your document as many times as you need to get a good scan. When you are satisfied with the scan result, click Continue Scan.

When you click Continue Scan, you will be redirected to take another photo. You can use this option if your document contains multiple pages. When you have finished scanning all pages of the document, click Save.

scan pages

Step 5: Share the document or save it to Files.

After you click Save, you’ll see several options for what to do with the document you just scanned. Three dots will appear in the upper right corner of the screen. If you click on these points, you will see the option to share the document or save it to files.

Save or share the file

You can send the scanned file via email, iMessage, or any other app installed on your iPhone. It’s a very easy and convenient way to share documents with others, and it basically works as a way to scan and fax from your iPhone!

Now that you know how to scan iPhone documents, you can use it as an alternative to scanning software like fax windows app or whatever you may have used on your android device.

More information on how to scan documents on iPhone

When the scanning window opens after clicking Scan, you will be able to scan a single-page document or a multi-page document.

In our article above, we focused on using on-device scanning software to scan a single page, but you can continue to add scanned images to your document by pressing the shutter button instead of saving the document.

This view works like an automatic document feeder that you might have on a physical scanner that allows you to combine documents with multiple pages into one scanned file.

Once you have created all the pages scanned with your phone’s camera, you can save it as a PDF file type document. This saved file can be saved to your device storage or included as an email attachment.

Instead of navigating through the Notes app, you can also long press on the Notes app and thus select the Scan Document option. After trying this out, you may find that the iPhone Document Scanning app actually produces some good scans.

Conclusion

Our iPhones are very powerful devices, and they can do a lot of things that we never even dreamed of doing before.

The document scanning feature in the Notes app is just one example.

So the next time you need to scan and save a document, don’t bother looking for a scanner. Just take out your smartphone and follow our Scan to iPhone instructions! Scan quality will be just as good, if not better.