How to search inside PDFs and scans on your phone

Contents6 sections

1. Why can’t my phone find the words in a PDF?
2. How do I search inside a PDF on iPhone?
3. How do I search inside a PDF on Android?
4. How do I get the text out of a photo or scan?
5. How do I make a scanned PDF searchable?
6. Questions people ask

Typed PDFs can be searched in Preview on iPhone or with Find in page in Chrome on Android. A scanned PDF is only a picture of words, so it needs text recognition (OCR) first. On Android, Files by Google and Google Drive read the text in scans and photos. On iPhone, Notes search reads documents you scan into it.

Why can’t my phone find the words in a PDF?

Because not every PDF contains words. A PDF exported from a document or an email holds real text, so any PDF viewer can search it. A scanned PDF holds a picture of a page. To your phone, the words on it are just shapes until something reads them.

That reading step is called OCR, or optical character recognition: software that looks at the picture and works out the letters. Until a scan has been through it, searching for “invoice” or a policy number finds nothing, even though you can see the word on screen.

There’s a second catch on iPhone. Apple’s Files help says to enter “a filename, folder name, or document type” to search, so Files finds a PDF by its name, not by what it says.

How do I search inside a PDF on iPhone?

Open it in Preview and use Find. Preview (iOS 26 and later) has a Find text in a PDF option, with Whole Words and Match Case. Apple’s Preview guide notes that a phrase is searched as that exact phrase. It works on PDFs that contain real text.

Keep scans in Notes if you want them found. Apple’s Notes search page says Notes searches “text in scanned documents”, and inside a note, Include Attachments in Find covers PDFs too. One exception: for a locked note, only its title shows in search.

For photos of pages and screenshots, Live Text lets you copy the words and Spotlight can search them. Our guide to scanning documents on iPhone and finding them again covers both, step by step.

How do I search inside a PDF on Android?

Android has more built in, and some of it handles scans.

1. Chrome: open the PDF, tap More, then Find in page. Google’s Chrome help says this needs Android 12 or later.
2. Files by Google: the same app that clears space on Android also searches inside files. With Smart Search on, search includes “text from images and .pdf”, and Google’s Files help says the scanning happens on your device. It can take a few days to cover everything, and it isn’t on every phone. With it off, search only uses file names.
3. Google Drive: Drive search covers “the titles and content of all files”, including words in pictures and PDFs, according to Google’s Drive help. The file has to be uploaded to Drive first.

How do I get the text out of a photo or scan?

Google Lens (Android). In Google Photos, open the photo, tap More, then Google Lens, and select the words you want to copy. Google’s Photos help has the steps.

Google Photos search. You can search for words inside your photos. Put them in quotation marks for an exact match. Google’s own example is finding a vet invoice by the clinic’s name.

Samsung Gallery. Open the photo and tap the yellow T icon in the bottom right corner to select the text, per Samsung’s guide. It’s on selected models.

iPhone. Live Text does the same in Photos, Camera and Quick Look. Apple’s Live Text page has the details.

How do I make a scanned PDF searchable?

Scan it with something that runs OCR as it saves.

Google Drive’s scanner on Android saves pages “as searchable PDFs”, per Google’s Drive scanning guide: in the Drive app, tap the camera button, scan, then save as .pdf. To turn an existing PDF or image into editable text, Drive’s Open with Google Docs works on a computer only, for files up to 2 MB.

Notes on iPhone saves a scan as a PDF inside the note, and its text becomes searchable in Notes.

Siftlo scans paper into a searchable PDF on either phone: Scan a document opens your phone’s own scanner, and Make it searchable reads the text on the phone as it saves. For PDFs, scans and photos of documents you already have, Siftlo reads the text on the phone too, free and unmetered, so you can find them with Siftlo’s search by what they say, such as a policy number or a supplier’s name. That covers your camera roll and the folders you let it see. It’s one of the document tools in Siftlo.

Tool	Phone	Searches inside PDFs	Reads text in photos and scans	Runs
Preview	iPhone	Yes, Find	Not stated by Apple	On the phone
Notes	iPhone	Scans in Notes	Yes, in Notes	On the phone
Chrome	Android 12+	Yes, Find in page	Not stated by Google	On the phone
Files by Google	Android	Yes, with Smart Search	Yes	On the phone
Google Drive	Android	Yes	Yes	In Google’s cloud
Siftlo	Both	Yes, in Siftlo’s search	Yes	On the phone

Questions people ask

Why doesn't my iPhone's Files app find a word inside a PDF?

Because Files search looks at names. Apple's help says to enter a filename, folder name or document type in the search field. To search the words inside a PDF, open it in Preview and use Find, or scan documents into Notes, whose search reads text in scans.

Which languages can phones read in photos and scans?

Apple lists more than 20 languages for Live Text, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. Google Drive's text recognition covers around 200 and detects the language of the document for you.

Is text recognition on my phone private?

It depends on the tool. Google says Files by Google scans for text on your device. Google Drive reads the text after you upload the file to Drive. Siftlo reads text on the phone and doesn't send your documents anywhere to do it.