Paperbay · Document organizer for MacPaperbay puts each document where you would have put it.
Scan a letter or save a PDF, and Paperbay reads it on your Mac. It names the file the way you would and puts it in the folder where the others like it already are.
Free to download, and the first 50 documents Paperbay files are free. After that, one purchase of $24.99. For macOS 27 on a Mac with Apple Intelligence.
It learns from the filing you already have.
As a document organizer, Paperbay learns from you. It looks at how your folders are built and how you name your files: a folder per person or per sender, folders by year, the date at the front or at the end. The next letter from your insurer goes where the last ones went, under the same kind of name.
Your folders stay ordinary folders in the Finder. Paperbay writes what it learned into a readable file inside them, and if you delete the app one day, a tidy filing stays behind.
Starting from scratch? Pick one of three templates when you first open Paperbay. It suggests folders until there are documents to learn from.
When it isn't sure, it asks.
Paperbay files a document by itself only on a route that has proven itself: three times right and never corrected. Everything else waits in Review with a suggestion and the reason, and you file it with one click or choose another place.
Where you put it becomes the rule for that sender, and Paperbay never changes a rule on its own. It doesn't delete or overwrite files either. A second file with the same name gets a number.
Some calls it leaves to you on purpose. If a letter carries several possible dates, or doesn't say whether 03/04/2026 is in March or in April, you pick the date. And because Apple's model can change with a macOS update, every route has to prove itself again after one.
Printed deadlines become reminders.
A due date, a notice period, the end of a warranty: when the paper prints it with a label, Paperbay offers a reminder in the list “Paperbay” in Reminders. It is due on that day and by default turns up three days early as well.
You decide each time, or set it to always or never, and a calendar event comes only if you switch it on. Paperbay never calculates a deadline.
Ask for a document and it's there.
Spotlight and Siri find a filed document by kind, sender, person or name, and by any word in it, scans without a text layer included. Say “Find a document in Paperbay” and then what you're after.
In the app, the search under Filed does the same and opens the PDF on the page with the hit.
Read on your Mac and nowhere else.
Vision recognizes the text, and Apple Intelligence reads sender, kind and person with Apple's model on the device. Paperbay never hands a document to Private Cloud Compute, and the app has no network access at all.
You don't create an account, and I run no server. The recognized text stays in Paperbay's own storage on your Mac, and the PDF itself is left exactly as it was.
A few more things
- Two ways in Save scans and PDFs to the Paperbay folder in iCloud Drive, from your iPhone too, or drop files on the window or the Dock icon.
- Names your way Date, sender, kind, person and your own text, in the order and with the separator you like. Where your filing already has a pattern, Paperbay keeps it.
- A record of what moved Filed lists what Paperbay put away and where, newest first, with the fields it read from each document.
- German and English letters Paperbay reads documents in both languages. Others follow once I have measured them.
- 50 documents free Reading, suggestions and reminders have no limit. The first 50 documents Paperbay files cost nothing, and one purchase unlocks filing on every Mac with your Apple Account.
English and German, following your system language.
Questions
Does Paperbay upload my documents?
No. Text recognition and Apple Intelligence run on your Mac, and the app has no network access. What you keep in the Paperbay folder in iCloud Drive syncs like any other file there.
Which Macs does it run on?
Paperbay needs macOS 27 on a Mac that supports Apple Intelligence, with Apple Intelligence turned on. Apple's model on the device is what reads sender, kind and person.
Will it reorganize the folders I already have?
No. It learns from them and moves only new documents into them, the ones you save to the Paperbay folder or drop on the app. What already lies in your filing stays where it is.
Which languages can it read?
German and English. Those are the two I have measured with test documents, and a language only counts once it has been measured.
What does it cost?
Paperbay is free to download, and the first 50 documents it files are free. After that, one purchase unlocks filing for good: $24.99 in the US, and the store shows the price for your country. There is no subscription.
What happens if I delete Paperbay?
Your folders stay as they are, with Paperbay's rules file inside, and the reminders it added stay in Reminders. Everything else it kept, like the search index, is a cache it builds again from your folders.
Your next letter already has a folder.
Paperbay is coming to the Mac App Store soon.