158
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) by Teppichbrand@feddit.org to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

It's perfect! Do you guys already do this?

I open a letter, I take it's picture with FairScan. The FairScan-folder on my android device gets syncthinged to the ingest folder for Paperless-ngx on my "server". Paperless imports it, deletes the file and sets the new documents tag to inbox. I decide if the document goes to the binder for important stuff, or if I just toss it in a binder with all the paper I most likely will never touch again. Next time I look at Paperless, I edit all documents with the inbox tag and remove the tag.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] diegantobass@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago

This is the transhumanism I like.

Jokes aside, how did you deal with your papers from the past? I do this with all new incoming mail, but I can't for the life of me find the time to scan the pile of taxes, bills, medical reports, etc. that has accumulated over 3 thousand years of family life.

[-] Teppichbrand@feddit.org 14 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

I took my Very Important Documents!!-folder to a neighbour with a decent scanner. It's not that much, we scanned for an hour or two. Older, less important stuff stays in binders I most likely will never touch. If I do have to look at something from there, I snap a quick FairScan before I put it back. So it's not about perfection, I just try to make my live easier from now on. :)

[-] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 6 points 1 day ago

You could buy an automatic scanner that takes a stack of docs and dumps the files to a network share.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago

Do you have any particular model in mind? What do you mean by "automatic scanner"? Any scanner I know needs quite a lot of manual preparation to scan a batch of documents.

[-] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 3 points 22 hours ago

Epson WorkForce DS‑730N

put 100 sheets on the tray, it scans them all and either puts them all into a single pdf or multiple pdfs. Then you split / merge them in software.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago

Not very automatic, is it? There are definitely better ways to scan high volumes of documents.

[-] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 4 points 22 hours ago
[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 0 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

You can use e.g. barcodes, patch codes or separator sheets (which usually carry the patch code). Sometimes you can also separate documents by recognising some feature on the first page, e.g. a logo or a barcode that's already there. And of course it's a good idea to put single page documents in a separate batch so you just separate them by page count. This of course also works if all documents are two or three pages long.

[-] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 3 points 21 hours ago

afaik you just listed features that the printer I mentioned (or if I am wrong, other similar printers) supports

it's my bad for not mentioning all possible workflows, I was just a bit lazy and thinking of my personal documents only, which do not work well with further smart automation, because my batches are highly irregular. So the more manual approach is the best for me currently. Maybe possible with some future AI integration.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago

Most of those features are implemented in the scan software on the PC, not on the scanner itself. Although there is a tendency to integrate more and more features in the firmware, which is not always a good idea. Also, if you're scanning low volumes, I'd say doing the separation before the scan is generally more efficient. At least that's how I do it. But that's just me, of course. I wasn't in any way trying to criticize your approach. If it works for you, it's great.

this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
158 points (98.8% liked)

Selfhosted

56072 readers
916 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

  7. No low-effort posts. This is subjective and will largely be determined by the community member reports.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS