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the-paperless-project
paperless
Python2016–2023
the-paperless-project / paperless · Archived

paperless

Scan, index, and archive all of your paper documents

15Distinct people
17Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
7.9KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Scan, index, and archive all of your paper documents

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

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This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year17 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2016-02-09 07:05:37 UTC to 2023-11-29 18:44:46 UTC.

012342016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments20162017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2023

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

What Hacker News says

17 sources
If I understand this correctly, the original Paperless was archived (Archival notice)[https://github.com/the-paperless-project/paperless/commit/9b...], so Paperless-NG was created. Now that Paperless-NG seems to be going unmaintained (last commit on 15th Sep 2021), Paperless-NGX has been created with a focus on an org, so that the continuity of the project can be maintained with a simple path for the original creators to join back if they want to. I don't think the community could have handled this better!
In Paperless-NGX
I actually plan on getting a paper scanner too (aside from the slow, crappy multifunction printer thingamajig i got), however, the pricetag has scared me away until now - do you have any other recommendations for maybe cheaper options? That being said, scanning stuff is only part of my plan - i also plan on putting things into Mayan EDMS or paperless, OCR'd up and searchable... https://www.mayan-edms.com / https://github.com/the-paperless-project/paperless
In Ask HN: Most life changing things that you bought?
- Feb 27, 2016, "I wish I could be paid to work on my side projects like @TheTweetPile and Paperless". (https://twitter.com/danielagquinn/status/703629488932970500) - Mar 13, 2016, "Added Gratipay" (https://github.com/danielquinn/paperless/commit/500cee1d9d06...) - Mar 13, 2016, "Gratipay sucks because it depends on PayPal. Long live bitcoin" (https://github.com/danielquinn/paperless/commit/705a5b8a8468...) - Apr 9, 2016, "Added reference to Mayan EDMS" (https://github.com/danielquinn/paperless/commit/674d54ec3878...) - Finally on Dec 26, 2016, "Give to the UNHCR" (https://github.com/danielquinn/paperless/commit/9ea39aeecb4f...)
In Show HN: Open Paperless – Scan, index, and archive paper documents
For those wondering about the relationship between Mayan EDMS, Paperless and Open Paperless here is a story line summary of the saga. Roberto Rosario (the creator of Mayan) is a very well known name in the Django, Python, document management, maker, hacking, open health and open source in the goverment circles. - https://speakerdeck.com/siloraptor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Rosario - https://www.pycon.it/conference/p/roberto-rosario - http://pyvideo.org/djangocon-us-2014/liberation-and-moderniz... - https://cpucadviceletters.org/login/?next=/ - https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/253 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_(software) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rubzEAojf-k Mayan EDMS was initially released in February 3, 2011 (Wikipedia and git log). In June 2015, Roberto gave a workshop in DjangoCon named From z
Read the rest
ero to paperless with Mayan EDMS (https://archive.is/FDpYS). Daniel Quinn (the creator of Paperless) also attended and presented at the same DjangoCon event (https://vimeo.com/135907408) and 6 months later after working on it for several months (Daniel's own words), he released Paperless on December 20, 2015 (https://github.com/danielquinn/paperless/commits/master?afte...). By January 24, 2016, Paperless had "exploded in popularity" (https://twitter.com/danielagquinn/status/691242822431830016). Both projects used Python, Django, same Django 3rd party apps like DjangoSuit, same document consumer model, same OCR engine, REST API, among other things. On the surface it appeared that Paperless was a copy of Mayan EDMS concepts and implementations without giving credit or mention. Many additions were planned for Paperless that were features and implementations already in Mayan (https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/44mh88/scan_ind...). A separate point of contention was that the name "Paperless" had been in use by other projects much earlier that Daniel's Paperless (https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=paperless&type=). Since there is no trademark on the name or description, other projects appeared with the same name and description (https://github.com/lrnt/paperless). On March 15, 2016, Daniel presented Paperless at CodeNode (https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/7843-intro-to-paperless). It was Daniel's February 27, 2016 tweet suggesting to be paid to work on Paperless that sparked the animosity between the users of the two projects (https://twitter.com/danielagquinn/status/703629488932970500). Many heated debates ensued. Even then, the main critique of Paperless remained technical, but lack of maturity and implemenation was described by one Reddit users as: "I've looked into paperless and it currently lacks a lot of...nearly well everything. Maybe in a year or two" (https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/6m9evn/want_to_go_pa...) On April 9, 2016, Daniel added a reference to Mayan to the documentation of Paperless (https://github.com/danielquinn/paperless/commit/674d54ec3878...). On April 17, 2016, Daniel posted on his old twitter account: "It looks like my idea for Paperless wasn't all that unique. This other project uses a lot of the same tools: http://www.mayan-edms.com" (https://twitter.com/danielagquinn/status/721726208606646272). On April 14, 2017, Daniel Quinn posted in his blog a summary of his experiences at DjangoCon Europe 2017 where he mentions meeting Roberto in person. He describes Roberto as a "rival geek" in what appears to be jest and uses positive adjectives to describe Roberto in the rest of the post. (https://danielquinn.org/blog/djangocon-2017/) On April 16, 2017 Daniel posted a tweet mentioning the popularity Paperless (https://twitter.com/danielagquinn/status/853701257051205632). The last release of Paperless is made on Sep 9, 2017. On Oct 18, 2017 Daniel posted: "I changed my Twitter name! This isn't me any more, so if you're looking for me, you should keep head over to @danielagquinn." (https://twitter.com/searchingfortao/status/92077862371561062...). Only 7 commits have been made to Paperless since with the last commit happening on Novermber 5, 2017. On December 18, 2017 a user named "zhoubear" anounced on Reddit's selfhoted "Open Paperless: Scan, index, and archive all of your paper documents" (https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/7kjocg/scan_ind...). It turned out that Open Paperless was a forked Mayan EDMS with cosmetic changes but with copyrights changed and no attribution to Mayan EDMS. After a much heated debate, copyrights and attributions were restored and the project's description has been updated to show that it is a new front end for Mayan among other usability changes meant for home users. In 4 days, Open Paperless has surpassed Mayan EDMS in popularity on Github. No posts or comments from Roberto can be found in reference of Paperless or Open Paperless. https://twitter.com/search?q=paperless%20from%3Asearchingfor...
In Show HN: Open Paperless – Scan, index, and archive paper documents

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