Android's camera plus Google Drive is one of the best document scanners going. Auto edge detection, deskew, multi-page support, OCR. Nobody talks about it because Apple owns the marketing for scanning.
The scan is easy. The post-processing is what people get stuck on.
Scanning with Google Drive
Open Drive. Tap + (new), then Scan. Point the camera at the page — Drive detects edges and snaps. Add more pages with the +. Tap Save. Drive uploads a multi-page PDF straight to your account.
Works on every Android phone with Drive installed (most of them).
Why scans need follow-up
Drive scans come out clean but big — typically 3–6 MB per page. A ten-page contract is 50 MB before you've even sent it. Gmail caps attachments at 25 MB. Compress drops most scans to a quarter of their size with no visible quality loss.
Sign and edit in the same trip
If the scan needs signing — leases, NDAs, school forms — pull it into Flint's signer and add your signature. S Pen makes it look real. Need to edit a field on the scan first? Edit the PDF — text edits work on born-digital PDFs; for scanned text, layer new text on top.
Samsung's scanner alternative
Galaxy phones have a scanner built into the Camera app — point at a document and a 'Scan' icon appears in the corner. Saves to the Files app as PDF. Same quality and same post-processing needs as Drive's scanner. Use whichever is closer to hand.
FAQ
Are Drive scans OCR-searchable?
Drive runs OCR on scans uploaded to your account — you can search the document text within Drive. The exported PDF includes a text layer in many cases, making it searchable in other apps too. Verify by opening in a PDF reader and trying to select text.
How big are Android scans?
Typically 3–6 MB per page, depending on phone and scanner. A 20-page document easily hits 80 MB raw. Compress before sharing — Flint usually gets it under 10 MB.
Can I scan multiple pages?
Yes. Both Drive and Samsung scanners support multi-page — keep tapping the + or 'Add' to feed in pages. Reorder before saving if the scanner shuffled them.
Scanned, but too big for email? Compress in Chrome and ship it.