Safe: a locked folder for your private documents

How to use the Scanfone Safe locked folder

1. Open the Safe in Scanfone and set a PIN.
2. Allow Face ID if you want to unlock the Safe with your face.
3. Move sensitive scans into the Safe, or scan new documents straight into it.
4. Unlock with Face ID or your PIN whenever you need a document.

Why a scanner app needs a lock

A document scanner ends up holding some of the most personal paper in your life: a copy of your passport, your ID card, a tenancy agreement, payslips, bank letters, a doctor's note. Your iPhone is protected by its passcode, but once it is unlocked, a child playing a game, a colleague looking at a photo or a friend borrowing it for a call can wander into any app.

The Safe adds a second lock on top of the phone's own. Documents inside it need your PIN or Face ID to open, even when the phone itself is already unlocked.

What people keep in the Safe

• Passport and ID card scans
• Residence permits, visas and birth certificates
• Contracts, tenancy agreements and payslips
• Bank letters and tax paperwork
• Medical letters and prescriptions
• Anything you would not want to explain if it popped up in search on a shared screen

Built on privacy, not bolted on

The Safe fits the way the whole app works. In Scanfone, scanning and text recognition happen on your iPhone. Nothing is uploaded unless you turn on Pro sync yourself, and there are no ads, no tracking and no analytics. There is no Scanfone account to create, so there is no account with your documents in it waiting to leak.

If you use Scanfone Pro, sync and the 1 TB cloud backup run on EU servers (Hetzner). Without Pro, your documents stay on the phone. Read the details on the privacy page.

The Safe is free

Plenty of apps treat a locked folder as a premium extra. In Scanfone the Safe is part of the free app, next to unlimited scanning, saving, OCR, folders and search. No ads, no account and no paywall when you save. Free PDFs get one small "Scanned free with Scanfone" line under each page, which Pro removes.

Locked folder plus smart sharing

Keeping documents locked is half the job. The other half is sharing only what is needed. Before you send a copy of something from the Safe, you can redact details such as ID numbers or account numbers, and add a watermark like "Copy for rental application". Both tools are free.

Good habits for sensitive scans

• Choose a PIN that is different from your phone passcode.
• Scan sensitive papers straight into the Safe instead of moving them later.
• Do not keep extra copies of passport photos in your camera roll.
• Delete old copies you no longer need, such as an expired ID.
• Share redacted copies whenever the full document is not required.

Safe versus hiding photos in your camera roll

A common workaround is to keep passport and ID photos in the camera roll, maybe in a hidden album. The trouble is that photos get shared in bulk, show up in memories and slideshows, and end up wherever your photo backup goes.

Scanning documents into Scanfone and keeping them in the Safe separates them from your everyday photos. They are proper PDFs with recognised text, ready to share when a landlord, employer or visa office asks, and locked the rest of the time. If you also want them on a second phone, Pro sync handles that without an email or password account: other phones join with a one-time code.

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