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Paperless-ngx

お任せ Omakase

Paperless-ngx is a document management system that turns scanned paper and PDFs into a searchable archive. It runs OCR on incoming documents, assigns tags, correspondents and document types, and keeps the originals on your server. It is the community-maintained successor of Paperless and Paperless-ng and is usually installed with Docker Compose.

Code Fireworks render of the Paperless-ngx repository, as of Nov 2026
As of Nov 2026Code Fireworks ↗

Why it fits

The repository LICENSE is GNU GPL version 3 with no "or later" statement (GPL-3.0-only). Free to self-host for a private household archive; documents stay on your own server.

Screenshot of Paperless-ngx
Screenshot: Screenshot from the Paperless-ngx documentation, GPL-3.0 · terms · source

Getting started

8 steps · clarity 2/5

Prerequisites (from the official docs):

  • A Linux server or PC with Docker and Docker Compose
  • Disk space for your documents
  • Optionally a scanner that can save to a network folder (the consume folder)

Steps:

  1. Download the three Docker Compose template files from the setup guide for your database.
  2. Edit the compose file for your paths and database choice.
  3. Edit docker-compose.env (consume/media/data paths and UID/GID).
  4. Replace PAPERLESS_SECRET_KEY=change-me with a real secret (for example openssl rand -hex 32).
  5. Pull the images with docker compose pull.
  6. Start the stack with docker compose up -d.
  7. Open http://<server>:8000.
  8. Create the Django superuser and drop a first PDF into the consume folder.

Official setup guide: https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/setup/

Notes

The earlier project paperless-ng is discontinued: its GitHub repository is archived (last push February 2023) and its README points to paperless-ngx as the direct continuation and drop-in replacement. The paperless-ngx README calls itself the official successor of Paperless and Paperless-ng.

Sources

  1. docs.paperless-ngx.com
  2. github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx/blob/dev/LICENSE
  3. github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx/blob/dev/README.md
  4. docs.paperless-ngx.com/setup
  5. github.com/jonaswinkler/paperless-ng

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