If you’re looking for the most Mac compatible document scanners, we’ve looked at a range of the best machines for using with macOS.
Although many all-in-one-printers also include a scanner, the performance and quality is nowhere near as good as with desktop document scanners.
Document scanners are also usually better integrated with OCR software when it comes to scanning PDFs and other documents that you want to edit or make searchable.
Using a document scanner can also help you go paperless in the office or at home by digitizing important documents, receipts, photos and more.
We’ve looked at the highest quality scanners that are compatible with Macs including the latest Apple Silicon Macs and latest version of macOS Sonoma.
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What We Looked For In These Document Scanners
There are a few things we looked for when choosing which document scanners were best for Mac users including.
- TWAIN driver support to allow them to work with any document management or OCR scanning software. This is especially important for offices or companies that want to integrate their own scan software with a document scanner. It also means that they will work with Preview and Image Capture which are free in macOS so if the manufacturer scanning software is useless and bloated, you’ve always got something to fall back on.
- Support for Apple AirPrint so that your scanner works wirelessly without the need to download or install the manufacturer software. Although AirPrint is designed for connecting printers via WiFi to a Mac, it also works for connecting document scanners quickly and easily.
- Duplex scanning to support double sided scanning of pages to speed things up. All the best document scanners can scan both sides of a page simultaneously although cheaper models will not support this.
- Automatic Document Feeders so you can load up pages and let it scan large documents without having to feed pages manually.
- Support for the latest Apple Silicon Macs with M-series chips and the latest versions of macOS including Sonoma.
However, if you’re planning to scan photos, you should also consider getting a photo scanner which do a better job of scanning photos and images than document scanners.
With this in mind, here’s our selection of the best Mac compatible document scanners.
1. Fujitsu Scansnap iX1600
The Fujutsu Scansnap range have always been excellent value and the Fujutsu Scansnap iX1600 is our tip as the best document scanner for Mac users.
When it comes to scanners, in our experience Fujitsu are by far the best and most reliable machines on the market, especially for Mac compatibility.
In particular, Fujitsu’s ScanSnap software is easily the best scanning software for Macs on the market.
With a scanning speed of 40 pages per minute, the Scansnap iX1600 is extremely fast and also boasts 33% faster duplex scanning.
It’s very easy to setup and use with macOS, partly thanks to the 4.3 inch touch-screen but also because the setup process is clear to understand.
While many printers now have touchscreens, not many document scanners do and the Scansnap iX1600 touchscreen is both easy on the eye and simple to use.
There are 30 customizable profiles that can be easily accessed via the touchscreen so that you don’t have to reconfigure it for different documents or tasks
You can connect to it to your Mac via your Wi-Fi network making it easy to also scan directly from your iPad or iPhone for example.
It also allows you to do handy things like scan to folder, scan to email, scan business cards, scan receipts and send scans to the cloud.
Fujitsu’s Scansnap software has also been updated to support the latest versions of macOS including Sonoma, which in our experience, isn’t always the case with document scanners.
The OCR accuracy of the Fujitsu Scansnap is also extremely accurate rivaling any of the best OCR software for Macs out there.
Pros:
- Touch screen makes it easy to use
- Very accurate OCR scanning
- Fast scanning around 40 pages per minute
- Excellent Scansnap software updated for macOS
Cons:
- Not great for scanning photos
- No Ethernet
- No TWAIN support for other scanning software
2. Fujitsu fi-7160
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 Color Duplex Document Scanner is one of the fastest document scanners on the market and rock solid reliability.
Because it’s a duplex scanner, it can scan both sides of a document at once making it incredibly fast and scanning lengthy documents, contracts and books.
Some of the highlights of the Fujitsu Duplex Document Scanner are incredibly fast scanning speeds of 60 pages per minute and 200/300 dpi color scanning.
There’s a generous 80-page Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) so you can let it get on with batches of scans including ultrasonic double feed-detection.
The Fujitsu fi-7160 also has Wi-Fi connectivity so that you can scan wirelessly and scan from other mobile devices such as iPad and iPhone.
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 also comes with a PSIP TWAIN driver for connection to other OCR scanning software and PSCapture Basic
On the downside, the Fujitsu Fi-7160 is a local scanner only – it can’t be used on office networks although the wireless connectivity allows multiple devices to connect to it.
Pros:
- Very fast scanning at 60 ppm
- Duplex scanning
- 80 page document feeder
- Excellent Scansnap software
- TWAIN support for other scanning software
Cons:
- No network scanning support
3. Epson WorkForce ES-50
If you want a lightweight, portable document scanner that’s easier to move around the office or home, then look no further than the Epson WorkForce ES-50.
The Epson WorkForce ES-50 is a fast and slim single sheet fed document scanner that can scan a single page in around 5 seconds.
It can handle documents of up to 8.5 x 72 inches but can also scan, ID cards, receipts and other paperwork.
The Epson WorkForce ES-50 comes with the Epson ScanSmart Software which helps organize your scans.
Once a document is scanned, you can choose to save it to a variety of places including email, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, One Drive, Word, Excel or Powerpoint.
It also includes Nuance’s OCR software to help create searchable PDFs and Word, Excel or other Office documents that can be edited.
The Epson WorkForce ES-50 uses USB power from your computer so no external supply is required either.
There’s also a Twain driver included with Epson WorkForce ES-50 which will work with most imaging software such as VueScan.
On the downside, there’s no document feeder so you have to feed documents by hand although it can combine multi page scans into one file.
The WorkForce ES-50 also does not support duplex scanning i.e. scanning both sides of a document.
Note that the ES-50 only works with a USB cable. For wireless scanning, you need the ES-60 or the much bigger ES-400 both of which also connect to mobile devices such as iPad and iPhone.
Pros:
- Lightweight and portable
- Scans single pages quickly
- Includes OCR software
Cons:
- Not suitable for batch scanning
- No two-sided scanning support
4. Epson WorkForce ES-400
If you’re looking for a robust document scanner to use in the office or home office, then the Epson WorkForce ES-400 is a reliable, high quality and durable choice.
The Epson WorkForce ES-400 is a bigger version of the Epson ES-50 with support for duplex scanning, batch scanning and wireless scanning.
The Epson WorkForce isn’t the fastest scanner out there at a speed of up to 35 ppm but it support duplex scanning on both sides of the page.
We also like the intelligent color and image adjustments made by the Epson WorkForce to improve the quality of scans as well as tools to auto crop and remove backgrounds with Epson Image Processing Technology.
There’s a 50 page Auto Document Feeder (ADF) for batch scanning which works with everything from A4 pages to business and receipts.
The scanner comes with the Epson ScanSmart Software which allows you to Preview, email, upload automatically recognize types of documents.
It comes with Nuance’s OCR software to create searchable PDFs and editable Microsoft Office documents. There’s also a TWAIN driver which allows it to work with any document management software.
The Epson WorkForce connects via a USB 3.0 port and WiFi but scanning via WiFi is notably slower than using a cable. There is however a high speed Network Interface Unit for use on home networks or offices.
You can quickly share scans via email or upload them instantly to Cloud services such as Dropbox, Evernote and Google Drive.
Pros:
- Very robust for office scanning
- 50 page automatic document feeder
- Epson Image Processing improves quality of scans
- Works with Preview and Image Capture on Mac
Cons:
- Slower than many scanners in this class
5. Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i Portable
The Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i is by far the best portable document scanner for Mac offering the best of Fujitsu’s industry leading scanning technology with the convenience of portability.
The Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i offers one touch scanning with Quick Menu options.
For a portable document scanner, it can do an impressive 12 double-sided pages per minute and even has its own Automatic Document Feeder that can hold 10 pages at a time.
It also supports up to 600dpi for color documents which isn’t bad for a mini-document scanner of this size.
You don’t need an external power source as the Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i can be powered directly from the USB port but there’s also an external power unit to plug into the mains too.
Other useful features include intelligent automatic image processing with auto color detection, paper size detection, de-skew and orientation and more.
You can choose to save scans on your hard drive and store them in the Cloud including in Dropbox, Google Drive and note taking apps such as Evernote.
There are of course downsides to portable document scanners and one of them is that the Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i doesn’t handle different page sizes or documents very well.
While you can scan all kinds and sizes of documents such as ID cards and business cards, you have to adjust the scanner manually but you can’t mix different sized documents.
Pros:
- Supports double sided scanning
- Can be taken anywhere
- Image processing to improve quality of scans
Cons:
- Only feeds 10 pages at a time
- Not designed for different sizes of documents
Comparison Table & Pricing
| Fujitsu Scansnap iX1600 | Fujitsu fi-7160 | Epson WorkForce ES-50 | Epson WorkForce ES-400 | Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i Portable | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auto Document Feeder Capacity | 50 | 80 | 150 | 35 | - |
| Double Sided Duplex Scanning | |||||
| Max Scan Speed | 40 ppm | 60 ppm | - | 35 ppm | - |
| Max Scan Resolution dpi | 1200 | 600 (optical) | 1200 | 1200 | 600 (optical) |
| Easy To Use Touchscreen | |||||
| WiFi For Mobile Scanning | |||||
Buy Now | Buy Now | Buy Now | Buy Now | Buy Now |
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