Originally posted on April 11th, 2013 in the Paperless 2013 blog


Genius Scan is a pocket scanner for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. Its purpose is simple: to help you quickly digitize documents, store them as PDFs and share them with coworkers. Here are just a few examples of how the millions of users who downloaded Genius Scan use it.


You Don’t Have A Scanner

Scanners are expensive and slow. Unless you need ultra-high resolution copies of a document, you’re better off using a mobile scanner. Unlike clunky scanners of the past, your phone is always with you – making it easy to scan and export documents on the road.

A professional example is a designer who uses Genius Scan at home. His workflow involves sketching his designs on paper first. He doesn’t have a scanner, so when he is done with his sketches, he scans them and uploads them to the cloud using our Dropbox integration. He can easily share them for feedback and can get rid of the paper copy of his old sketches.

Streamline Your Workflow

Small business employees are often on the road collecting documents signed by customers. A pocket scanner enables them to scan these documents in the field and immediately send them to the main office. This handy solution ensures that important documents are never lost and streamlines the process by ensuring no wasted time waiting on signed documents to proceed.

One of our users runs a small aircraft company. He spends his time flying and on the runways. One of his responsibilities is giving flight lessons. With Genius Scan, he can immediately sign the students paperwork and transmit flight plans to the central office. This is important both for the student’s records and for safety.

Never Lose Your Sticky Notes

Typing notes on a mobile phone is annoying. As a result, many people still use sticky notes to remind themselves of important tasks. But, sticky notes are easy to lose. With Genius Scan, you can quickly scan your notes and archive them with Evernote.

An example we hear a lot is from users that love to cook. As you cook, you jot down recipes that you want to keep for later. Instead of letting sticky notes pile up in your kitchen drawer,  you can easily scan the recipe and upload the result to Evernote.

Simplify Your Expense Reports

Expense reports are a pain. After a business trip, the last thing you want to do when you get back to the office is scan a pile of receipts using the copy machine and then attach them to your expense report. It’s easy to put this off, but the longer you wait the more likely you’ll forget to expense charges or loose the receipts before you submit them:

With Genius Scan, you can scan all your receipts and save them in one unique PDF document. Once you are done, export the document and attach it to your expense report. Even better: Genius Scan enables you to directly export your receipts to Expensify if it’s supported by your company.

Make Sure You Graduate!

Genius Scan is a great fit for the education world. A portable scanner makes it easy for students to share notes or to snap a picture of a whiteboard before it’s erased by the professor. Some teachers also ask students to scan and email their assignment. They also scan student assignments to share with the class as an example of what a good assignment should – or should not – look like.

This is a true story. One day we received an email from an appreciative user explaining how Genius Scan had saved her graduation! On her way to hand in her final research paper, this user got stuck in a terrible traffic jam. Sitting there stuck in traffic, she realized there was no way she’d make it to school in time to hand in the paper. Lucky for her, she was able to use trusty pocket scanner to send in her final report from the car (not that we advocate scanning and driving!).




These are just a few of the ways Genius Scan has helped millions of users. We hope to make even more people’s lives easier by allowing them to go paperless. With Genius Scan, you can declutter your life and never lose another piece of paper.

Let us know if you have more stories on how a pocket scanner helped you: @thegrizzlylabs on Twitter or contact@thegrizzlylabs.com