Scan and forget: file letters without folders, find them later

Tap “Scan” in your archive. The camera finds the page edges, and you capture a multi-page letter one page after another. Once you save, you are back in your archive while processing continues in the background. With “+” you can also add files, photos, typed text or emails.

You don't pick a folder or type a name. Even without an analysis, every document gets a title: a scan its date and time, a file its file name.

For a sharp, complete scan, see How to scan a document with your iPhone.

After a scan, the app recognizes the text on your device. The analysis then gives the document a meaningful title, a document type such as invoice, notice or medical report, and a summary. In your archive, each analyzed document shows an icon for its type and a colour for its area, so you can tell tax mail, insurance letters and medical reports apart right in the list.

The free Light analysis runs with Apple Intelligence on supported devices and in supported languages. The full analysis with Pro explains in more detail and also finds deadlines, tasks and warning signs: 1 credit per analysis. With “Archive only” under Settings → Document analysis, you just collect and analyze later when you need to.

Your insurer asks for the invoice, your landlord for the statement. Instead of leafing through folders, type what you remember into the search field: a topic, a document type such as “invoice” or a word from your notes. The search covers titles, summaries, document types and notes. Filters narrow the list by area, period, deadlines or risk, and a calendar shows which documents are due or were imported on a given day.

For an exact amount or sentence, open the original: the search inside the document covers its full text, including scans, and highlights the matches. The archive search itself does not go through every word of every original.

Tap a document to open its explanation, double-tap to open the original. Both stay together, even months later. Before a doctor's appointment, open your earlier reports and the questions you noted. When a new notice arrives, link it to the previous one so the whole case stays together.

If Pro has found a deadline, tap “Add to calendar”: the app fills in the event and you confirm it. For any other document, swipe left in your archive and choose “Remind” to create a calendar entry, for example for tomorrow or in a week.

• You can forget: folders, file names and re-sorting. The archive stays useful without upkeep.
• Don't forget: deadlines, payments and replies. ExplainThisDoc does not send its own notifications; your reminder is the calendar entry you create.
• Originals: still keep certificates, notarized documents and other important papers. The guide on which documents to keep shows which ones.
• Back up: if you turn on iCloud Sync, your archive is on your devices signed in with the same iCloud account. “Archive export” in the archive's “⋯” menu saves the whole collection as a ZIP file.