Papersync: Handwriting to Text

Papersync

In-app purchases

About this app

Papersync converts handwriting to text for people who think on paper. Photograph a notebook or journal page; the AI provider you pick transcribes it into Markdown with your own API key, and the scan saves to Google Drive™ or a folder you choose. Convert handwritten notes to text with your phone camera. There are no ads and no subscription; you pay your AI provider directly, at its rates.

PAPER FOCUS, SYNC ANYWHERE
You think better on paper. Scan notes from a notebook, a journal or a meeting pad, and they stop being trapped on the page.

HOW IT WORKS
1. Point the camera at a handwritten page and tap capture. Already took the photo? Import it from your gallery instead.
2. Papersync asks your AI model to turn handwriting to Markdown that mirrors the page: headings, lists, checkboxes and crossed-out text.
3. Review mode shows the result with your photo: sync it, discard it, or run it again with extra instructions. Fast mode saves on its own at a confidence score of 70% or higher and stops for review below that.
4. Each scan, the transcription with its photo, is saved to Google Drive (in a Papersync folder) or to a folder you pick on your phone, for example one a sync app keeps up to date. Scan history keeps your pages at hand. Copy the text or share it with any app.
5. On your computer, the Papersync plugin for Obsidian files each scan into that day's daily note as Markdown.

BUILT FOR HANDWRITING
Papersync is a handwriting scanner and handwriting reader for notebooks, journals and planners. How well the handwriting recognition works depends on the model you pick and on your handwriting; a confidence score shows how sure the model is about each page.

BRING YOUR OWN API KEY
You paste an API key from the AI provider you choose. Some providers offer a free tier with limits; a free tier may let the provider use your pages to improve its models, so check its terms. API use is billed separately from AI chat subscriptions, which do not include a key.

WHERE YOUR PAGES GO
Photos go to your chosen AI provider for transcription and to your chosen storage when saved. Supported providers: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, OpenRouter, xAI, Mistral AI, Groq, Hugging Face, Alibaba Cloud, Together AI, Z.ai, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, Meta, Xiaomi, StepFun, BytePlus, or a custom endpoint you enter. OpenRouter and Hugging Face pass the request on to the host of the model you choose. The app asks your permission once, before any page is sent, and the provider handles and may keep your pages under its own privacy policy. Nothing passes through Papersync servers; we have none.

PRIVATE BY DESIGN
- No Papersync account. Google sign-in is optional and only used for Google Drive.
- API keys are encrypted on your device using the platform keystore.
- Anonymous usage stats are off unless you turn them on. Crash reports are always sent so we can fix what breaks; they never include your notes, photos or keys.

WHO IT IS FOR
Students who want a handwriting to text converter for lecture notes, people who need a notes to text converter after meetings, journal keepers who want to convert handwriting to text from years of notebooks, and Obsidian users who still think on paper.

WHAT PAPERSYNC IS NOT
- Not a subscription. The only purchase is a one-time Supporter unlock that saves your own scan instructions as the default. Supporter is optional. AI usage is billed by your provider.
- Not a document scanner. It is handwriting OCR built for notes: it does scan to text for handwriting, not for printed pages, and a page with no handwriting comes back empty.

Scan a page and keep the words.

Obsidian is a trademark of Dynalist Inc. Google Drive is a trademark of Google LLC. Other names are trademarks of their owners. Papersync is an independent app, not affiliated with or endorsed by them.

What’s new

• Pasted API keys now work even when they carry spaces or line breaks
• The camera opens right away while Google Drive signs in
• Setting up your AI provider now works on slow networks