Google Drive is a solid solution for storing important files across your devices. But if you're an iPhone user, you've been missing out on a key feature Android users have had for years: document scanning.
This simple integration makes it much easier to quickly add important documents to your Google Drive. It's something Apple offers with its own Notes app, but Google was reluctant to add to Drive's iOS version. A workaround, of course, it to scan your documents using the Notes app, save it to your photos library, then add it to Drive, but that adds a series of cumbersome steps Android users don't need to worry about.
Native document scanning is also much more convenient than simply taking a photo of the paper: Document scanners automatically crop the image so only the document itself appears and attempts to reproduce the elements of the page the same as a traditional scanner would.
Thankfully, those days are behind us. Google finally added document scanning to Drive on iOS. Now, iPhone users can add documents like receipts, bills, and notices to their Drive just as Android users can. It comes with an update to Drive that sees a few new features across platforms, but more on that in a bit.
Whether you have an iPhone or an Android, scanning and uploading a document to Drive is easy. To start, open the app and select the Camera icon in the bottom right. (Alternatively, you can tap the (+), then hit Scan.)
Next, frame the camera view over your document. The app will intelligently scan the paper so only the document will be scanned. Tap the shutter button at the bottom of the display when ready to capture.
According to Google, this feature may take one to three days to fully roll out on iOS (I don't see it on my end as of this morning), so keep an eye out if it isn't available in your app yet.
While document scanning is the big new feature on iOS, Android users can expect some additional features in Google Drive. Going forward, Drive can automatically capture documents when it detects them, so there's no need to hit the shutter button, unless you prefer to do so manually.
There's now an improved camera viewfinder to help you position the frame to get the best scan possible for your document. You can also import docs from your camera roll, and there's now a way to initialize a scan faster using a new scanner button.
