How to Find Scanned Documents on iPhone (a keyword is enough)

BP Mobile
3 min readNov 3, 2023

--

Among all document-related tasks, file searching firmly holds an honorable fourth place for the most time spent. This isn’t good news for anyone who thinks productivity is more than a buzzword. Because unlike other document-related tasks, such as creating a document or looking for information, searching for files is not at all productive. It doesn’t create anything new or offer a chance to learn. If anything, it can be a bit counterproductive, as it tends to add frustration and demotivation with each passing minute of the search. At iScanner, we value your time and take productivity seriously. Therefore, we’ve added two features that will help you find any document in the app in seconds. In this post, we’ll tell you how to find scanned documents on your iPhone quickly and easily (by the way, it works for uploaded documents too!)

How to Search for a PDF Like a Pro: Streamline Your Workflow with Smart File Search

How to Find Scanned Documents on iPhone by Name

Locating files in iScanner is pretty easy because the app has an excellent file manager and displays file previews. However, if you’re something of a digital hoarder who never deletes anything, manual search can get old very fast (and probably faster than you find what you need).

This is why we’ve added Name Search — a feature that allows you to search for files automatically. All you need to do is type the file name or at least some portions of it into the search bar.

How to Find Files by Name in iScanner

  1. First, open the app or install it if you don’t have it — you’ll see a search bar at the top of the screen.
  2. Next, switch from Ask AI (which is a fantastic feature incidentally, basically, ChatGPT for your documents) to Name Search.
  3. Type the file name, parts of the name, or any numbers the file name may contain into the search bar.
  4. As you type, the app will present you with the file(s) that contain your search query in their name(s). Voilà!

No Name — No Problem!

When you have a lot of files, remembering their names can often be difficult. So, how to find scanned documents on your iPhone if there’s a whole bunch of them and you have no clue as to what they might be called or when you scanned or uploaded them?

The good news is that if you’re on the hunt for a particular document, chances are you have a rough idea of what it’s about. That’s more than enough to track it down with iScanner! Our app now comes equipped with a super handy Content Search feature. Just type in a word or phrase you think might be in the document, and the app will find all your files containing that search term.

How to Find Scanned Documents on iPhone with Content Search

  1. Open the app and you’ll see the search bar at the top of the screen.
  2. Toggle the switcher to Content Search.
  3. Type any words or numbers that you think your file contains within it.
  4. Next, you’ll need to decide whether you’d like to refine your search by selecting specific files or search across all your files. Keep in mind that if you have a substantial number of files in the app that haven’t undergone text recognition, the search may take some time as it will need to process and recognize text within them using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology.
  5. iScanner will search the contents of your documents for your search query and present you with a shortlist of suspects.

Check out this blog post for more tips on finding files faster and easier.

--

--