Galaxy phones have a better document scanner now, and it just saved me a ton of hassle

I’ve digitized physical documents on a Galaxy phone many times, and the process typically involved scanning the document, then editing it to remove my fingers or corner folds, if they were captured during the process. However, things have come a long way.

With One UI 8.5, Samsung updated the built-in document scanner on Galaxy phones with a few useful tools that make document scanning less stressful. A couple of weeks ago, I had to digitize a contract. I quickly pulled out my Galaxy S26 Ultra and was really impressed with how well the built-in document scanner worked.

Samsung’s new document scanner fixes two big annoyances

Scanning a document on a phone is easy. You open the Camera or a third-party document scanner app, hold the phone above the document, and the app scans it. However, the scanned document doesn’t always come out as intended. If you hold the document in your hand or place your finger on it to hold it in place, the scanner will capture that too. Similarly, it captures folded corners if the document or book you’re scanning has any.

Accidentally scanned fingers and folded corners are two huge annoyances of scanning documents on a phone. To fix them, Samsung added two useful tools to its document scanner in One UI 8.5 — Fingers and Corner Fold — that remove fingers and folded corners from the scanned document, respectively.

Both use AI to detect and remove fingers and folded corners in the scanned document. And the best part is that they work automatically. So, if you scan a document and it captures your finger or folded corners, the appropriate tool automatically kicks in to fix the flaw. You can then scan more pages, save them, and share/upload them without worrying about fixing them later.

How Samsung’s document scanner fared in my use

I recently had to scan a physical contract, sign it, and share it with someone. Here’s how the updated document scanner on my Galaxy phone made the process quick and easy.

Like any typical contract, the one I wanted to scan had multiple pages, stapled together at the top-right corner. As a result, every time I turned the page to scan the next one, the folded paper bunched up and left creases around the staple corner. With the older document scanner, these creases would be scanned too and appear as folded corners in the scanned document. I’d then have to crop out the folded corners or remove them using online tools, which is a lot of work. The former approach doesn’t always help, though. If there isn’t enough margin, cropping the folded corners could also crop the document content.

Another slight inconvenience I faced while scanning was that the contract was on a fresh sheet of paper, so laying it flat on the table was challenging. Naturally, I had to use my other hand to keep the pages from curling as I scanned them, and as expected, this ended up capturing my fingers in the scanned document. With the older version of Samsung’s document scanner, I’d have to edit the document later — using an AI removal tool — to remove the scanned fingers. But the updated scanner automatically removed the scanned fingers as soon as I scanned the contract, which saved me both hassle and time.

To check how effective the Fingers and Corner Fold remover tools are, I put them through a few more scans. This time I scanned pages from a book that had lots of corners folded for bookmarking. I also scanned pages with the book in my hand to check how the scanner crops out the surroundings, corrects the angle, and removes fingers and corner folds.

Both tools did their job really well, and the results were consistent. The Corner Fold tool flattened the creases, and the Fingers tool removed the fingers effectively. Having said that, I wish the Corner Fold tool handled leftover shadows better: it worked fine on documents scanned in good lighting but struggled under harsh conditions.

Other useful Samsung document scanner options you should know about

Aside from removing elements (fingers and corner folds), Samsung’s built-in scanner can do a few other things. Removing moire is one of them. Moire, for those unaware, is a distortion effect that appears as wavy lines or patterns when you scan printed backgrounds, like those in magazines, books, or screens. It’s available as the Moire tool, just like the Fingers and Corner Fold tools, under the same menu.

Among other things, the document scanner also offers a crop tool. It comes in handy when the automatic detection gets confused and can’t crop the document. You can access the Crop tool by tapping the crop icon. After that, tap the handle along the edge or corner. This will bring up a magnifier to help you position the border exactly how you want. You can also rotate the document if needed.

Lastly, the scanner packs a few filters. These can be helpful in certain scenarios. For instance, say the text on the physical document you just scanned isn’t sharp and is affecting legibility. You can apply the Clean filter, which sharpens and darkens the text and brightens the background, to make text stand out. It’s great for fixing blemishes on papers. Other filters include: Natural, Grayscale, and B&W.

Alongside making changes to the scanned document, Samsung also lets you configure the default scan resolution. To do this, open Camera and tap the four-dot icon to expand the menu. Tap the gear icon to jump into settings. Here, select Scanning > Document scan > Scan resolution and pick your desired resolution. Set it to High for best results with text-dense documents.

Now, if you scan documents frequently, you can add a quick access shortcut to it on your phone’s Apps screen. On the Document scan settings page, toggle on the Add Document scan to Apps screen option. You can also move it to the Home screen if you want. Tapping this opens the Camera app in document scanner mode, where you can scan documents using both Auto and Manual mode.

With the addition of Fingers and Corner Fold removal tools, Samsung’s built-in document scanner is now more capable than ever. It’s also finally caught up with Google’s document scanner (on Drive and Pixel phones), though I like Samsung’s approach more because it automatically erases elements upon capture instead of leaving the removal process up to me. This saved me a lot of post-scan editing when I had to scan and send a multi-page contract. The updated document scanner is also one of the many reasons I’m sticking with a Galaxy phone instead of switching to a Pixel.