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Something a lot of people miss with paperless is its automatic import options.
There is a folder called 'consume' that you can place files in and paperless will import them just like you'd uploaded them manually. Combined with tools like FolderSync or SyncThing you can have files on all sorts of devices automatically upload to paperless.
Sitting down to use the flatbed scanner is a hassle, so I use GoogleLens to take multiple photos of a document, save them as a single pdf, then FolderSync moves that to my server automatically where paperless imports it.
Along side this; Paperless has an smtp mail importer. You can add your email accounts and paperless will automatically import new emails based on whatever criteria you specify. Imported mail will then be flagged, moved, or outright deleted from the mail server.
You're right, I don't take advantage of any of these features. I should.
Partly because of lack of know how on my part. So I don't trust myself to successfully have it log into my email, get what it needs and leave everything else untouched. My main uploads, payslips and bank statements, are behind their own apps too.
Partly because paperless is isolated in it's own little container (in my setup at least) so access to the consume folder is behind another step, I could syncthing it... I just haven't.
And partly because I use the android app as my main interaction with Paperless. The app uses my phone as a good-enough scanner.
For this, Bind-mounts are your friend:
Files get dropped in /srv/paperless-ngx/consume on the host and import to the container.
As far as setting up mail goes: it's pretty straightforward. Add an account, then create a rule for each type of mail you want it to manage. Specify filters like who it's from, what's in the subject/body, how old is it, etc.
And until you are comfortable, just leave the action set to mark as read. Worst case, if you didn't set your filters right; it'll unnecessarily mark mail as read. No big deal.
I just have mine move processed mail to a folder on the mail server called 'Paperless-Imported', which I manually clean out now and again.
Thank you. Setting it up seems less daunting now. I'm going to try for setting up emails.
The android app is fairly functionally complete, and I only interact with my phone or tablet. In fact, for desktop tasks I have a Linux Mint VM I just console into from my tablet, a sort of sudo laptop.
In anycase, for manual uploading files my phone is probably easier. But, your advice is good for everybody that's not me, sensible people.
Your comment about bindmounts might have solved my biggest problem with Paperless, in that it doesn't write to my 3-2-1 back up folder directly so I end up 3-2-1ing the whole machine. Which is fine, but I keep multiple snap shots of my LXCs so it's multiples of multiples.
/zpool/important/paperless:/use/src/paperless/originalSpecific file paths aside, would [path to zpool]:[path to originals] have paperless saving the originals to my zpool so I would only have 3 copies instead of 3*#of snapshots?
Indeed it would. That's exactly how I have mine setup; with borg backing up the originals folder from the host.
If you are making this change to an existing installation; remember to copy the contents of the current originals folder out of the container and into the host folder you intended to bind mount, before you change the mount.
So, copy the contents of container:'/use/src/paperless/original' place them in host:'/use/src/paperless/original', THEN add your bind mount to the container config.
Otherwise you may lose the contents of the folder within the container and have to retrieve it from a backup.
My server is full of bindmounts. Too many bind mounts. It causes a host of permissions issues if I'm honest. There wasn't a storage problem I didn't solve with bindmounts. Except this one, this one I decided I had to have interact over SMB or some shit.
I remember, I tried to solve it with bind mounts before. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't saving to /mnt/important/paperless/... I think when I get to /originals it's going to look like ./originals/mnt/important/paperless/... Somewhere it's going to look like that. Urgh
Thank you. With that problem solved Paperless is, currently, perfect for my needs.
We taught each other something new: I didn't know there was a mobile app. Imma go check that out :)