Local PDF Scanner
SoonA mobile app for iPhone and Android that scans paper documents into PDFs on your device. We are building it with the same local-first, privacy-by-design posture as the rest of the Privacy Toolbox - your scans stay on the phone until you explicitly save or share them.
Features (in development)
- Native document scanning with edge detection and perspective correction.
- Multi-page capture: add pages, review, reorder, or remove before export.
- One-tap PDF creation stored in app-controlled local storage.
- Save to Files or hand off through the system share sheet - you pick the destination.
- No mandatory sign-in, no ads, and no document analytics in the scan-to-PDF path.
Why it is privacy-first
Many scanner apps send every page to the cloud for processing, OCR, or "sync." This app is designed around a simple on-device data flow:
Camera scan → local page images → local PDF → your explicit Save/Share
- Local-first processing - scans and PDFs are created on the device; the core workflow does not require network access.
- Minimal permissions - camera access is requested only when you tap to scan, not at launch.
- No remote OCR in MVP - text recognition stays out of scope so sensitive content is not sent to third-party AI or OCR services.
- Share is a deliberate boundary - until you save or share, documents remain in the app's local environment; after that, the operating system and the app you choose handle the handoff.
- Small dependency footprint - fewer third-party libraries means fewer places your document data could leak by accident.
Status
The app is in active development and is not yet available in app stores. This page describes our intended product and privacy commitments for the MVP.
Want to learn how we build it? Boxfish Labs Education publishes a privacy-first PDF scanner course (CRA-aware engineering habits for new builders - educational material, not legal advice).