Google Drive will OCR scan to PDF or save JPGs

[gazumped 12,054]

Anyone noticed that the latest version of the Google Drive mobile app has a 'new note' option that will scan to PDF or JPG?  And they threw in an OCR option too. If you're unhappy with scannable it might be a useful option... 

[Mishkafofer 31]

Google drive done OCR for long time. What's different in this implementation?

[gazumped 12,054]

34 minutes ago, Mishkafofer said:

Google drive done OCR for long time. What's different in this implementation?

Did it scan to JPG/ PDF before too?  I'm currently using it with a GD folder defined as an 'import' (synced) folder so that whatever I scan there automatically winds up in Evernote.

[Mishkafofer 31]

It OCRed PDF. Not sure about JPG. One drive and Google drive offer this capability. I use One drive online search due to the fact it scans inside PDF and OFFICE files.

[mackid1993 1,236]

I've mostly degoogled, not that it's much better but I use Dropbox for this sort of stuff only because they are a large cloud storage player (so they have fast servers everywhere) and they are independent and not owned by Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, or Meta. I've found that the smaller cloud storage providers are way too slow and I don't like to use my NAS for document and photo storage although everything I keep on Dropbox I use a script to mirror to my NAS.

[CalS 5,307]

I use One Drive (comes with 365) for non essential stuff and it indexes PDF's. Excellent search via mobile. Confidential stuff I use MEGA for the E2E encryption. Downside is one can't search contents on mobile, only titles. I use Windows indexing for the MEGA tree on my PC. Remarkably fast indexing and retrieving. 

[mackid1993 1,236]

Just now, CalS said:

I use One Drive (comes with 365) for non essential stuff and it indexes PDF's. Excellent search via mobile. Confidential stuff I use MEGA for the E2E encryption. Downside is one can't search contents on mobile, only titles. I use Windows indexing for the MEGA tree on my PC. Remarkably fast indexing and retrieving. 

Cryptomator is free and awesome for confidential stuff, also better because it's zero knowledge and can be used with any cloud storage provider. I always avoided MEGA because of the Kim Dotcom association and investment from Hong Kong which is antithetical to privacy.

[CalS 5,307]

Good to know, but I'm fine on the risk scale.

[mackid1993 1,236]

Just now, CalS said:

Good to know, but I'm fine on the risk scale.

I was talking less about risk, more about saving money! It's basically an app you install that creates an encrypted vault on whatever storage you choose (broken up into little encrypted files for faster syncing), then it mounts on your machine as a drive letter. They also have a mobile app which is a one time fee but that connects to the cloud storage over their API so it's a bit more limited.

[CalS 5,307]

3 hours ago, mackid1993 said:

I always avoided MEGA because of the Kim Dotcom association and investment from Hong Kong which is antithetical to privacy.

I was confused.

Anyway, when I started my conversion I tried something similar to Cryptomator, BoxCryptor. Needed something for local notebooks. It may be different with Cryptomator, but I found the BoxCryptor/One Drive combo to be laggy. Second half of 2021.

Mega on the other hand has the quickest sync process that I've seen and more importantly, is simple. Everything is encrypted now. I had a 50 GB free MEGA  account using very little when I started. Post conversion still short of 50 GB I purchased a subscription.  I felt I was getting significant value from MEGA. Didn't seem right to be getting that much value for free. Just under 50 Gb today, 33 GB in the repository. FWIW.

[mackid1993 1,236]

15 hours ago, CalS said:

I was confused.

Anyway, when I started my conversion I tried something similar to Cryptomator, BoxCryptor. Needed something for local notebooks. It may be different with Cryptomator, but I found the BoxCryptor/One Drive combo to be laggy. Second half of 2021.

Mega on the other hand has the quickest sync process that I've seen and more importantly, is simple. Everything is encrypted now. I had a 50 GB free MEGA  account using very little when I started. Post conversion still short of 50 GB I purchased a subscription.  I felt I was getting significant value from MEGA. Didn't seem right to be getting that much value for free. Just under 50 Gb today, 33 GB in the repository. FWIW.

Dropbox actually bought BoxCryptor. Cryptomator is similar but open source. I find Dropbox to have a really fast sync client, certainly more efficient than OneDrive.