What’s new: Scanner App

[DBXCommunity]

There’s nothing worse than forgetting an idea, or losing an important piece of paper. The one thing we never lose, and usually don’t forget is our phone - so now with the Dropbox Scanner App, you can save, organize, and share important documents right from your phone. Dropbox Scan is a standalone app that lets you quickly transform all your physical documents into high-quality PDFs. It’s everything you love about doc scanner in the Dropbox app—but even faster and easier to use. The app is available to iOS users in English-speaking markets, and you can sign into Dropbox with your corp email or a Basic, Plus, or Professional account. Whatever the situation, whether it’s a piece of paper, a receipt or even a whiteboard of notes, you can conveniently save high quality scans to Dropbox.

• Receipts - Take the pain out of your next expense report, and save receipts as you go. 
• Whiteboard drawings - Never feel rushed in a meeting or presentation again. Just use the doc scanner, and an image of the whiteboard will be uploaded as a PDF or PNG to Dropbox.
• Contracts, bills, and invoices - Now your filing cabinet can be digital, and take up a lot less space. And of course, you can share it with others who need access. 
• Photos - We’ve all taken a photo of a photo, but now you can scan them and keep them safe, with the same phone - just better results. 
• Business cards - Never lose an important connection! Easily upload business cards from meetings, conferences and trade shows—right from your mobile device.
• Magazine clippings - Instead of ripping out a piece of a magazine or newspaper scrap you will inevitably lose, just scan the page or excerpt into Dropbox using the document scanner.
• Personal cards and notes - Scan those thoughtful personal notes into Dropbox for keepsakes without the clutter.
• Handouts - Scan in materials from classes or seminars for easy reference— they’re a lot less likely to get crumpled or torn in a digital setting! 
• Napkin sketches - Never lose your next big idea again.

There’s a Smart crop feature, Smart folder suggestions based on where you've saved recent scans, and you can even edit the scan for clarity! 

You can probably tell we’re a little excited about this one! Which of these uses are you excited about? 

[jonalisa]

dropbox allows you to type in a name for each document as you get ready to save it, and you can create different file folders to hold each group of documents/pictures/etc.  By giving each a unique name, (which can be pretty long, even). upi can simplify your life a bit.  I have a folder for each cruise, and all photos/receipts/etc go in for that event.  In another folder, I keep the receipts from getting my house ready to sell.  Another folder for family stuff, one for each club I belong to...  Think of it as a file cabinet.  Dropbox is the overall cabinet.  A folder is like a drawer, and inside each folder you can have even more folders (year, then month1, month2, etc); inside each of these folders, you can further subdivide into categories as necessary.  So, then, you want to see a photo from your trip to Disneyland in 2018, it would be /2018/june/disneyland to find all the photos there.  

I hope this helps.  

[Badjer]

This is a good idea as a starting point

The friction point that I have ran into is that the "search" does not find everything in the file titles (or folder). I was trying to use some naming conventions that I could use on more than one file to help surface the files with that same naming convention. So for me if I am looking for an item sometimes I find it sometimes I don't. I have brought the issue up with the support team & they are aware of the issue. Apparently the search bar is still in the beta phase & is going to be worked on more deeply in 2021.

Your idea sounds like a good approach if you need your content to exist in one area. This could be very helpful for me once the search can actually find everything in the title on a consistent basis

TY 🙏

[jonalisa]

my naming conventions have so far worked well for me, and I can search the entire dropbox and find all files that fit within that convention.  sometimes I use duplicate names for files in different folders (like a monthly thing, one in Jan, one in Feb...) which helps me track trends.  going up to the dropbox level for searching seems to find most everything I am looking for.  Good luck with finding a solution that works for you!

[Gregg T.]

That means that we have to know what we're going to search for BEFORE we search, which is fine for very simple searches.  Imagine finding all the instances of your Aunt Ruth in your system, or all the times you visited Disney WITHOUT recalling the years you went.  Or how about some ingredient of a recipe you snapped a picture of?

When we tag images, we can assign categories after we file them away, and, in fact, I don't actually know where many of my images are located when the tagging system works well (like for gmail or MacOSX searching).  This is a GOOD thing in that it's just too much info to remember and it's not coordinated with the info I might have recalled (the 'tag').

Tags also allow me to cluster similar files without constructing a filing system via folders.

[Badjer]

Like I said the team told me that the search is still in Beta. So it is great that it is working for you but it is not working for everyone's account. In my case it doesn't find everything & for you it sounds like you are one of the lucky ones so I am happy that it works that way for you. 

Thankful for the info regardless. I also run into the situation where my info falls into multiple categories so a hierchy is not always the best approach in my use case but it is nice to hear other options that work for others

[Badjer]

Agreed
My info is often in many categories. Tags allows me to search in many areas as I can create connections & add context to an item regardless where it is actually located. I do not have to decide put it here or there since w/o tags that is the hand you are dealt. Tags also allow me to add various level of metadata if I need use of such workflows

I was with Evernote for years & cannot tell you how simplistic & fluid my workflow was with tags. When I realized there were no such things in DB I was.....surprised to say the least

[Kamal3r]

Its not yet made for Andoid, mate. 

[avilip71]

How do I organize photos?

[Gregg T.]

Have you tried using the web version on your Android device?