Questions and Answers

PlainCopy is a PDF scanner app for iPhone and iPad (iOS 17 or later). Scanning, editing, naming and exporting are free, with no watermark and no account. Pro makes every scan searchable, suggests where to file it, and sends it to Files, Paperless-ngx, WebDAV or email in one tap. Scans, text and names are processed on your device.

Scanning, editing, naming and exporting are free, with no watermark, no account and no sign-up. PlainCopy Pro is optional: $34.99 a year with a 7-day free trial, $6.99 a month, or $59.99 once. See pricing.

No. Exports never get a watermark, on the free plan or on Pro. That is written in the app's promise.

PlainCopy runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 17 or later. There is no Mac app yet. If you use iCloud Drive, you can open your PDFs on a Mac in Finder.

Not yet. PlainCopy is on iPhone and iPad first. If an Android version ships, this page will say so.

Your scans are plain PDF files in the Files app, under iCloud Drive › PlainCopy, or On My iPhone (On My iPad) › PlainCopy if iCloud Drive is off for the app. Settings › Library Location opens the folder. Because they are ordinary files, they survive a new phone and open in any PDF app.

About 400 KB per A4 page at the Standard setting. Small is about 200 KB and Best about 1.3 MB per page. The file size is shown before you share, and you can change it per document.

Yes. Scanning, editing, naming, OCR and search all run on the device. You need a connection only to send a scan somewhere or to buy Pro.

Send To sends a scan to a folder, server or email in one tap from Share, or automatically when you add a tag. A destination can be a Files folder (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox), a Paperless-ngx server, a WebDAV server or an email address. It is a Pro feature. See Paperless-ngx and WebDAV.

No. Text recognition (OCR) and full-text search are Pro features. Smart naming is free and reads the first pages in memory without adding a text layer. A document that already has a text layer keeps it, whatever your plan, unless you edit its pages without Pro (PlainCopy asks first).

Yes. Text recognition runs on your device with Apple's on-device engine in 12 or more languages, detected automatically. Nothing is uploaded. See searchable PDFs.

Only if you want it to be. Pro comes as a yearly plan with a 7-day free trial for new subscribers, a monthly plan, or a one-time Lifetime purchase. Apple handles the payment; cancel any time in Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions.

They stay as they are. Signed, merged and searchable PDFs never get locked, you can still open, share, rename, move and delete everything, and search goes back to titles. Pro features themselves (new OCR, Send To, sign, merge, split, password, app lock) wait until Pro is back.

PlainCopy has no account and the developer never receives your scans or the text in them. Apart from scans you send, by hand or with a tag rule you set up, the app sends only purchase data to RevenueCat to unlock and keep Pro in sync: your App Store purchases of PlainCopy, a random ID, a device ID that is not the advertising ID, and the app and iOS version. If that ever changes, the app, this site and the App Store privacy label will say so. See privacy.