How to scan documents on iPhone with Notes or Files

Choosing Notes or Files

Use Files if the scan is going anywhere. You skip the extra step of getting the PDF out of Notes. For flat paper pages you don't need another app.

iOS 26 and iOS 27 also have a Preview app with a Scan Documents button on its start screen, and it makes a PDF from the pages you scan. To put that PDF in another folder, tap the menu next to the file name, then Move. Files is still the better start, because you choose the folder as you save.

Scan a document with Files

1. Open the Files app.
2. Open the folder you want the scan in.
3. Tap More, then tap Scan Documents.
4. Hold the phone over the page and set Flash or Filters if you need to.
5. Capture the page in one of two ways:
   • Automatic: keep the phone steady and it captures the page by itself.
   • Manual: switch to manual capture, then tap the shutter button (in iOS 26 you can also press either Volume button). Drag the corners to the page edges, then tap Keep (Keep Scan in iOS 26).
6. Scan any more pages, then tap Done.
7. Confirm or change the location, then tap Save.

Rename the scan straight away (touch and hold the file, then tap Rename), so you can find it by name later. With Apple Intelligence on iOS 27, Files suggests a name (iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max or iPhone 16 model or later, and not in all languages or regions).

Scan a document with Notes

1. Open Notes and open a note or start a new one.
2. Tap the attachment button, then tap Scan Documents.
3. Capture each page as in steps 4 and 5 of the Files steps above. To change a page after automatic capture, tap its thumbnail, then Adjust.
4. Scan any more pages, then tap Done.

In an open note, you can also tap More, then Scan. The attachment menu also has Scan Text, which types the words into the note (in supported languages) instead of attaching a picture of the page.

Get a PDF out of Notes

1. Open the note with the scan and tap the More button on the scanned document.
2. Tap Share. The same menu also has Copy, Rename and Delete (Apple's PDFs in Notes guide), so you can give a Notes scan a proper name here too.
3. Choose where to send or save it.

Find a scan you've saved

If you can't find a Files scan, type part of the name into the search field in Files, or open the folder and sort it by Date so the newest file is easy to spot (Apple's guide to finding files).

Apple's Save to Photos setting covers only photos and videos taken in Notes, so don't look for scans in Photos. Notes searches text in scanned documents, so searching for a word printed on the page usually turns it up.

Fixing crooked crops, shadows and blur

To fix the crop before saving, use manual capture (step 5 of the Files steps) or the thumbnail route in step 3 of the Notes steps. If the scan is already in a note, set the attachment to Medium or Large first (More, then View As), then tap the page thumbnail, tap the edit button and choose Crop Page, Rotate Left or Rotate Right. Apple says Crop Page and Filters only work on scanned documents, not on PDFs you've attached from somewhere else.

If the page is in shadow, turn on Flash. If a page comes out grey or too dark, try another option under Filters. In Notes you can change a page's filter after scanning (tap the thumbnail, the edit button, then Filters).

A filter can't fix blurry text. Retake any blurred page before you finish.

ID cards, passports and large scans

• If a form asks for both sides of an ID card on one page, see how to scan an ID card with front and back on one page.
• If a passport upload is rejected, see how to scan a passport so upload forms accept it.
• If a multi-page scan is over an upload form's size limit, Compress in Files won't help, because it wraps the PDF in a ZIP file, and upload forms usually want the PDF itself. See how to make a PDF smaller instead.