What document management solution are you using? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tab87vn · 2023-11-25 21:02 So I'm setting up a home server for personal purposes, among which, storing personal documents/files.. accumulated over the years is now my next target. I've already had: \- Nextcloud to upload/sync files from my mobile devices \- Calibre to manage ebooks, magazines \- Jellyfin to manage multimedia files, including photos I'm looking for a solution to upload/manage documents. Could be my Ids, could be my rental contract, or recovery passphrases for my accounts, etc. There are a lot that can be found from here: [https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#document- management---integrated-library-systems- ils](https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome- selfhosted#document-management---integrated-library-systems-ils) But I'd love to get real experience and advice. Something that can run with docker and maybe, probably integrate nicely with the rest of the above stuff. ​ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mfalicoff · 2023-11-25 21:16 I think you are looking for [paperless- ngx](https://github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx), you can upload, tag, search any uploaded document. You can run it with docker as well ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bouni2022 · 2023-11-25 21:24 This! Use it for about 2 weeks and it's awesome ---------------------------------------------------------------------- martinkrafft · 2023-11-25 21:33 also try Docspell! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- notdoreen · 2023-11-25 21:40 An SMB share from a Windows server VM. I've also been playing around with paperless but honestly I trust the SMB share way more and it's so much easier for me to not fuck up and lose all my data like I've done in the past playing with Docker containers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tab87vn · 2023-11-25 21:58 how's search? given the amount of documents (small files mostly, but way too many) the more efficient, the better. I'm still having files since 2005 😄 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-11-25 22:15 Nextcloud works great for document management, if you additionally install tesseract OCR and Elasticsearch. Then you can use any smartphone document-scanner (I personally use "swift scan") to add new documents via WebDAV Upload, but I think it's of them support WebDAV. The Nextcloud app even has a document scanner feature built in, but it's not very good. I have been reading about the features of paperless-ng and I don't see what that software additionally brings to the table that a properly setup nextcloud cannot do. Only that I have Nextcloud anyways and it can do much more than document management and I love to have all aspects of my "personal cloud" in one tool. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ceciltech · 2023-11-25 22:30 >Tesseract OCR I am very unclear on what happens with the OCR output and how that is associated with the file and how it is searched? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- leknarf52 · 2023-11-25 22:36 This. I am lazy and don’t even tag and it’s still amazingly useful. Would be even better if I used the actual features. It’s a great app. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- leknarf52 · 2023-11-25 22:37 Search is great ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JoeB- · 2023-11-25 22:55 >I'm looking for a solution to upload/manage documents. Could be my Ids, could be my rental contract, or recovery passphrases for my accounts, etc. It may be better to distribute some of these requirements across different solutions. For example... 1. For general notes and instructions, I use [**Joplin**](https://joplinapp.org/). Joplin has desktop and mobile apps and can be synchronized between devices using a number of targets. I started out with my own WebDAV server but migrated to Dropbox. Documents can be attached in Joplin, but I insert only screenshots or other images into my documents. 2. For account passphrases/passwords, Identity info (driver's license and social security #s), credit card and bank info, and other miscellaneous info, I use the free tier of [**Bitwarden**](https://bitwarden.com/). Bitwarden has desktop/mobile apps and browser extensions. I started out hosting my own Vault using [**VaultWarden**](https://www.vaultwarden.net/), but migrated my Vault to the native Bitwarden service. I believe what you want for uploading and managing documents is a Document Management System (DMS). See [***Top 5 open-source document management systems***](https://contentsnare.com/open-source-document- management-systems/). [**Papermerge**](https://papermerge.com/) also looks interesting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tab87vn · 2023-11-25 23:23 I'm also using Joblin and Bitwarden the same way you're doing, abeit with azure and Bw free tier from very beginning. My notes and wikis are a bit fragmented between notions, google keeps, samsung notes and even onenote (mostly because the latter 2 support handwriting with my phone and tablet). I started using Joblin a few months ago because I take during work and I really prefer something with e2e and storage of choice. That said, I'm gradually moving my personal notes to Joblin, while keeping notion for shared wikis, plans, etc. Yes I'm really looking for an efficient DMS, separated from photos and books. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tab87vn · 2023-11-25 23:26 I have NC app on my phone, and while it's very easy to upload files and photos, the organising and viewing part are not the best mm. I'd love to search and view my file the way Calibre does to book, and Jellyfin to photos. Not sure what extension I can install for NC to do so? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tab87vn · 2023-11-25 23:36 I'd honestly prefer something web-based with phone apps. I'll rather be careful with volume mounting and make additional copies of files, including cloud backup, to avoid data loss. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JoeB- · 2023-11-25 23:54 I started out with OneNote as well, but synchronization between my Mac and OneDrive was problematic. I switched to Evernote for a while. Unfortunately, Evernote reduced the number of devices that could be used in the free tier from three to one and continuously annoyed me with prompts to upgrade. Joplin ticked all the right boxes and is superior to the others IMO. I like being able to edit notes directly in markdown language and to add my own icons for identifying notebooks. Here is a [screenshot of my Joplin app](https://i.imgur.com/zpHc9VL.png). A Zip archive of [72 pixel x 72 pixel x8-bit RGB images](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pdk p483mwvj6pjgpisqk3/icons-72x72- png.zip?rlkey=yetd3j3lvq4za7q65q83ejwl2&dl=1) that I use for Joplin (and [Pushover](https://pushover.net/)) icons are hosted on Dropbox. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hhs99 · 2023-11-25 23:56 I love paperless. I even have my scanner scanning to the consume directory and be able to directly import into it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Darkchamber292 · 2023-11-26 02:43 I setup an ingest email. Paperless@mydomain. I just use Adobe scan on my phone and forward it or any receipts I get via email I forward to that email. It's great ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Athensz343 · 2023-11-26 04:14 Bro! I just came on this subreddit right now, to ask about the very same situation! In my case, I have well over 900 PDF documents, which a lot of them i transfered from my phone to computer. Then a good majority of them are full books, which I'ved OCR-processed and then turned into ebook format for Calibre web-server. But the others are legal documents, tax documents, instruction manuals, research papers, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CincyTriGuy · 2023-11-26 05:12 > Digital receipts I register for at stores I just give it the paperless email. It's great Oh man. I never thought of that. What format do the emails land in your consume at? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Darkchamber292 · 2023-11-26 05:29 Usually PDFs. Then I just have Paperless strip the PDF from the email and ingest it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I_want_pudim · 2023-11-26 08:28 Jellyfin for photos? But why? You have nextcloud that does it better, and you can have immich that does it even better. Whats the appeal of Jellyfin for this purpose? Like you won't ever sync, it's just photos stored somewhere for people to see? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-11-26 08:34 There is a new app for Nextcloud that supposedly is great for photos called "Memories" but I prefer using Photoprism alongside Nextcloud, to categorize, extract EXIF data, detect faces & objects etc. Also I use Photoprism to create albums to share with friends and family. NC app on my phone handles the uploads (once I am on Wifi connection, the NC app uploads all fotos and deletes them when done). The photo handling capabilities of Nextcloud are still limited imo so Photoprism or immich still have a place in my setup. I don't think paperless-ng has the same USP over Nextcloud that the photo apps have. Or Jellyfin for Media streaming. So when using "external" apps like Photoprism, it's important for me that they are able to handle data alongside my existing NC. I also have a link to my Jellyfin library within Nextcloud, so when I want to send a movie to someone I can do this via NC. I am ok with the search, when using Elasticsearch at least. It is very fast, over the entire content of files stored in NC and I usually can find info i need in a couple of seconds. I agree the interface could be better, showing an extract of the location where it found your search term etc. But it works how it is in "real life". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Silencer306 · 2023-11-26 08:44 How do you lose the data playing with docker containers? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- relativisticcobalt · 2023-11-26 10:11 Also I use QuickScan which has the paperless API built in. I scanned something like 400 documents in a couple of hours using it, super easy and efficient! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-11-26 10:34 PDF can contain the "image" portion of a scanned document but overlay, as let's call it "metadata", the text content as ASCII characters, and make the image part accessible for computers. I.e. search engines. If you are using adobe Acrobat, It has a built in OCR engine that does this. But often pdf files just contain an image. With the tesseract plugin, Nextcloud converts the images to plaintext and stores the text in the PDFs metadata, to make it searchable... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tab87vn · 2023-11-26 10:56 Ah cool, I didn't know. That said, the NC UI is a bit difficult to use as for document management, it feels more like a general file explorer/browser, like good drive. Which makes it a messy. Or maybe I don't know how to use it the right way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-11-26 11:00 I think that's a matter of "getting used to", since you can also use tagging and keywords to further categorize documents in NC. If you are using it with one person only, it's probably overkill and there might be better apps to do it. But as soon as more people get involved, it really shows it advantages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tab87vn · 2023-11-26 11:04 Yeah, jellyfin is more on the consuming side of the stacks. I have NextCloud that does most of the uploading/synching business, getting photos from my phones or tablets or laptop; qbittorrent for taking movies around and put in on the disk, etc. Eventually all those data would be on a directory on the computer disk and that's where the consuming side starts. It really does not have to be Jellyfin that does the photos job, but it's already there for music and movies and photo display seems decent. Of course I'm still experimenting (atm trying also Photoprism) so if there's a better option, please feel free to recommend. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- reen444 · 2023-11-26 11:17 You just have to set the media folder for paperless right, and you could just use SMB to access the files and have both optionms. Don't store data inside containers, not just for paperless. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SteppkenPislmick · 2023-11-26 11:23 What I always think about when paperless-ngx comes up is file storage. Currently I have everything organized in directories in Seafile what makes it easy to sync, access and to backup. Can I tell paperless to store the scanned files in the filesystem? So they end up on Seafile with all my other non-scanned documents normally uploaded document. If the storage is completely different this would mean extra work because all the backup, sync, organization topics are different. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thies226j · 2023-11-26 11:47 Mayan-EDMS has a steep learning curve but is really useful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-11-26 11:52 I started using anytype now, the fact that Joplin doesn't have built in sync was the deal breaker for me, although it looked like a great app. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JoeB- · 2023-11-26 14:54 Joplin certainly does have built in sync, and can use a number of synchronization targets - WebDAV, file system, Nextcloud, and more. I have Joplin installed on an iPhone, iPad, two Macs, and a Linux system. They all stay synced.