Paperless-ngx is a community-driven document management system. Drop scans and PDFs into a consume folder (or email them in); OCR extracts text, and you organize everything with tags, correspondents, document types, and saved views. Ideal for tax papers, contracts, and the paper pile that never ends.
Key Features
- OCR Pipeline: Multi-language OCR so scanned pages become searchable.
- Smart Metadata: Tags, correspondents, document types, custom fields.
- Automation: Consume directories, mail fetch, and matching rules for auto-tagging.
- Search: Full-text search across the entire archive.
- Access Control: Multi-user setups with permissions.
- Integrations: REST API, webhooks, and mobile-friendly web UI.
Why Choose Paperless-ngx?
- Evernote/Notion are not built as a serious paper archive.
- You want documents offline and under your control.
- Scanner → folder → searchable library is the workflow you need.
- Homelab staple with long-term maintenance and community.
Docker Deployment
Official compose is documented at paperless-ngx docs. Minimal idea:
# See official docker-compose for redis, db, webserver, and worker
# https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/setup/#docker
services:
paperless:
image: ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:latest
# ... env, volumes for data, media, export, consumeMount a consume directory; files dropped there are ingested automatically.
Getting Started
- Deploy with Docker Compose (Postgres + Redis recommended).
- Create admin user and set consume path.
- Scan a test document or drop a PDF into consume.
- Add tags and correspondents; create matching rules.
- Export backups of the data volume regularly.
Full Setup Guide
Official docs: docs.paperless-ngx.com. For self-hosted Docker stacks on a VPS, start with Dokploy install.
