On September 23, 2026 I released DocLensr: PDF Scanner, the 27th app on my App Store account and the first one I built mostly for myself. For years my document scanner was Microsoft Lens. Then Microsoft retired it: the app was pulled from the App Store on November 15, 2025 and new scans stopped working on December 15, 2025, with users pointed to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app instead. I did not want my scanner to live inside an AI assistant, tied to an account, with a feature set and a price that could change again. So I built the scanner I actually wanted.
What a scanner is for
Most of the time I scan the same kind of thing: an ID, a contract, a receipt, a form someone needs "as a PDF, today". The job is small and has a fixed shape. Frame the page, get a straight crop, make it readable, hide the parts that should not travel, send it. Everything else a scanner app grows over time, from cloud folders to sign-in prompts, is in the way of that thirty-second job. DocLensr does the job and stops.
What's inside
- Edge detection in the camera as you frame the page, then a manual crop where you drag the four corners yourself. Automatic is fast; manual is the one you trust.
- Multi-page documents: keep scanning, add a forgotten page later and drag to reorder before you save.
- Four filters per page (Original, Grayscale, Contrast+, Black & White) and rotation for pages shot sideways.
- Redaction that is actually permanent. Black boxes over ID numbers, addresses, IBANs or phone numbers are burned into the image, not layered on top where a PDF viewer can lift them off. Pinch to zoom for precise placement.
- Export as a clean PDF through the iOS share sheet: Mail, Messages, Files, AirDrop, anything.
- A library with titles, tags and search, plus drafts so an unfinished scan is kept where you left it.
Private by design, which is the point
No account, no ads, no analytics, no upload. Documents stay on the iPhone. That is not a marketing line; it is the reason the app exists. The things people scan are exactly the things they would not want in someone else's cloud: identity documents, bank details, medical papers. I have written before about why I ship apps without a backend, and a scanner is the clearest case yet. There is no feature here that a server would make better, and several that it would make worse.
Permanent redaction follows from the same thinking. If the black box is a separate layer, the data underneath is still in the file. Applying it to the pixels means the exported PDF contains only what you chose to share, whatever tool opens it.
Free to try, Pro to keep
The whole pipeline is free: scan, crop, filter, redact. Saving to the library and exporting the PDF are DocLensr Pro, offered as a monthly subscription, an annual one and a lifetime purchase. I pick the pricing model per app, as I explained in subscription vs one-time pricing, and here all three made sense: a scanner is a tool some people use every week and others twice a year, and both deserve a price that fits. The free part is deliberately the whole experience, not a crippled preview, so you know exactly what you are paying for before you pay.
Why this one is different from the rest
Most of my portfolio is built around a niche and an official source: exam catalogues, traffic law, citizenship tests. DocLensr is a general-purpose utility in a crowded category, which is normally a fight I avoid. I took it on because I had a clear opinion about the product and the market had just lost a free, well-loved option. The opinion is the same one that runs through everything I ship: do one job completely, keep the app small, keep the data where it belongs.
Sometimes the best product brief is a tool you relied on going away. You already know the job, you know what annoyed you, and you know what you would happily pay for. DocLensr is that brief, shipped.