Read, scan and export PDFs. Free, and private.

Leaf is a fast PDF reader and document scanner for Android. Scan paper with your camera, make the text searchable, then export, merge or share.

Download for Android

Why Leaf

• Free
• No ads
• No watermark
• No account
• Nothing leaves your phone

What it does

• Reads PDFs smoothly. Scroll and zoom large documents, search, bookmark, see the contents, and read in night or sepia mode. Password-protected PDFs work too.
• Scans documents. Use the camera or pick photos. Leaf finds the page edges, crops, and lets you reorder, rotate and delete pages.
• Makes scans searchable. Text recognition runs on your phone, so you can search and copy the text of a scan.
• Exports your way. PDF (with or without searchable text), JPEG, PNG or plain text, in small, balanced or high quality.
• Merges and extracts. Combine several PDFs and scans into one, or pull selected pages out of a PDF.
• Shares and prints with the apps you already use.

Download

Requirements

• Android 8.0 or newer, on a phone or tablet.
• Google Play services is needed for scanning and text recognition (reading PDFs works without it).
• An internet connection is needed once, the first time you scan or recognize text, so Google Play services can download its scanner and text models. Leaf itself has no network permission and asks for no permissions at all.

How to install

Leaf is not in the Play Store, so Android asks you to confirm a few things. This is normal for apps you install from a website.

1. Download the APK with the button above. Your browser may say that this type of file can harm your device. Tap Download anyway or Keep.
2. Open the downloaded file. If Android says your browser (or Files) isn't allowed to install apps, tap Settings and switch on Allow from this source (also called Install unknown apps), then go back.
3. Tap Install. Google Play Protect may show a notice such as App not scanned or Unknown developer. Tap More details, then Install anyway (or Install without scanning).
4. Open Leaf. You can switch "Install unknown apps" off again for your browser afterwards.

Updating

Download the newer APK and install it over the old one: your documents, scans and settings stay. In Leaf, Settings › Check for updates opens this page.

Changelog

1.0.0 · 2 November 2026

• First release: PDF reader, document scanner, on-device text recognition, export (PDF, JPEG, PNG, text), merge and extract pages, search, bookmarks, night and sepia modes.