There are quite a few scanner apps out there for your phone. It’s tough to know exactly which one to choose.

Well, don’t worry. I tested out a bunch of the top scanner apps out there for you.

I ran them each through a couple different tests with my test paper.

I tested them both on carpeting and wood flooring. I know that some of the scanner apps have trouble scanning on wood flooring because of the rectangular shapes in the background. So, I wanted to see how they stack up against each other there. And don’t worry, all the pictures were taken in equally terrible lighting.

I also tested scanning a piece of paper while still in a notebook and a piece of paper all by itself.

On top of that, I tested their abilities to scan things back-to-back, as well as the various features they all had.

Let’s dive right in.

iScanner

iScanner has the most customization of them all when it comes to the color filters to use on your images/scans. Their ability to change the color of your scan is the most customizable of all the options here, and the whole app is simple and easy to use.

The way the scanner on this one works is a simple point and hold. All you do is point it at the item you’re trying to scan. It will auto-detect it for you, do a little countdown, then scan it. If you want, you can make it go faster by clicking the button and having it take a picture before it finishes with the auto-scan. 

You can always go back and change the auto-crop, as well. However, they don’t have a zoom feature when you’re re-cropping it–essentially a bubble that pops up that’s zoomed in on the area you’re cropping. Not that I was able to find, anyway. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but it’s something to keep in mind if you have big fingers or have trouble seeing small things on your phone.

iScanner didn’t have any trouble scanning on a wood floor. And there wasn’t any difference scanning from a notebook versus a singular piece of paper.

On top of that, you can add signatures to your scans. With the signatures, you can type them, draw them directly on the screen, or take a photo of your signature to add it to the documents.

They also have an OCR (Optical Character Reading) feature. It wasn’t able to read my handwriting very well, but most OCR’s have trouble reading handwriting. On top of that, my handwriting is more sloppy than the average person.

You can also create folders in the app, lock your scans, and organize the way all your scans and folders are shown with search and sort features.

Perhaps my favorite of all the features of iScanner was the different types of scans you could do. They not only had different sizings for your scans (for instance, A4 versus the original picture sizing), but they had scans for things like a passport or driver’s license, and they had some pretty cool features like “Math” and “Area.”

The “Math” feature does exactly what it sounds like: You scan a mathematical equation and it solves it for you. Admittedly, I didn’t test the math feature very thoroughly. I just threw on some basic algebra and arithmetic, but it was able to solve them. For the algebra, it always solved for x, but it still solved it. Here’s an example:

The “Area” feature was a little bit more complex. You can map out an area on your phone, and somehow the app tells you the area, perimeter, etc. of the thing you mapped out. It creates the image as a regular geometric shape on a white background. Here’s an example:

I was pretty impressed with iScanner. It does cost $9.99/month at the time of this writing (they have other offers, but that’s their default plan) for the premium features listed above, but if you’re a scanner app power-user who needs a lot of easy-to-use features, this is your app.

CamScanner

CamScanner has a lot of features. It’s the most complex scanner app on this list.

First, let’s go with what it doesn’t have compared to iScanner (it would just make it easier). It doesn’t have the “Math” or “Area” features that iScanner does. It also doesn’t have the same level of color filter customization, and you can’t draw your signature–you have to scan it from another document/paper.  That’s it. Everything else, it has–and it has more.

You can create folders, it’s got sort and search options, you can lock the documents, it’s got zoom-in when you’re re-cropping, and it’s got the auto-crop feature where it picks out the page for you. And it passed all my tests.

While it doesn’t have the countdown and doesn’t show you what it’s going to auto-crop for you when you’re taking the picture, it does make up for that with speed. Just take the picture and you’re done–it auto-crops for you after-the-fact.

It also has a lot more types of things you can scan. For instance, you could create a greeting card! They also had the ability to scan books, convert the scan into Word or Excel files, and more.

They had conversions to Microsoft Office products, pictures, and you could do things like add watermarks.

While it’s $59.99/year (they’ve got other offers, too–that’s just their default one), if you’re a serious scanner app user looking for a ton of features, CamScanner is the way to go.

Genius Scan

Genius Scan is just a nice and simple scanner app that passed all my tests. It’s got the auto-scan and countdown timer for you, different color filters, the ability to re-crop, the ability to change the format (from original to A4, for instance), and paid features like extra export options and the ability to lock documents. And when you re-crop, it gives you a zoom-in.

Genius Scan+, the paid, premium option for Genius Scan, allows you to get more export options (like to cloud storage or auto-export), allows you to lock your documents, gives you text recognition, and takes out the ads. At the time of writing this, Genius Scan+ is only about an $8.00 one-time purchase.

The only potential downside to Genius Scan is that you can’t draw or add text to your scans and you can’t organize them into folders. The folders issue is taken care of by the fact that you can easily export your documents to cloud storage, but the drawing and text capabilities aren’t something I’ve seen yet for Genius Scan.

That’s really all there is to say about Genius Scan. Genius Scan is the one that I’ve been using the longest, but all these options in this article are really good. If you’re looking for a nice, simple, cheap option that still allows some customization, I’d suggest Genius Scan.

Office Lens

Office Lens is essentially the camera app on your phone, but you get the ability to have auto-scan and can take pictures in a PDF format. It’s super nice and simple, and it passed all my tests.

The color filters are simple to use, you can re-crop it and it’s got a zoom-in when you do, and you can draw on it and add text to it.

As soon as you open up Office Lens, you get access to the scanner. All the other options–like file storage–are found with buttons throughout the screen. Office Lens is basically just used as a pass-through app that you use to take special pictures. Like I said, it’s really simple.

It’s also free. If you’re looking for that kind of thing, this is your app.

Dropbox Scan

Dropbox Scan is also free, and it’s also super simple. And it passed all my tests.

It’s got auto-scan features, different color filters, and integrates with Dropbox. That’s about it.

The one thing to beware of on Dropbox Scan is that you can’t go back and edit your files after you’ve clicked “Done” with them. After that, it saves it to your Dropbox. So, if you are someone who finds themselves going back and re-editing your scans, this may not be for you.

If you’re someone who uses Dropbox a lot, though, then you’ll probably like this one. It’s a really simple scanner app that integrates with your Dropbox to help you add files.

Adobe Scan

Adobe Scan is another free, and fairly simple, option. This one passed all my tests.

It’s got auto-scan, the ability to re-crop, color filters, resize (original to A4, for instance), and you can “Cleanup” the images. The Cleanup feature basically allows you to erase parts of the document you don’t want and draw on it.

It also integrates with Adobe Acrobat for more customization of your PDFs. While Adobe Scan is free, Adobe Acrobat is a paid thing. So, if you want the extra customization that Adobe Acrobat brings, you’ll have to pay for it.

Other than that, Adobe Scan is a nice and simple option that lies in between Office Lens and Genius Scan in terms of features. If you use Adobe a lot and have their other apps, this will be perfect for you.

Ultimately, all of these apps are really good. They all passed my (*cough*) very strenuous testing and have varying levels of customization to them. Find the one with the features that you like the most and go with that one.

Oh, and since you’re now going to be scanning some documents, if you want help organizing all of them, then check out our article on note organization here.