How to Self-Host Paperless-ngx Document Management

What Is Paperless-ngx?

Paperless-ngx is a document management system that transforms your physical documents into a searchable online archive. It uses OCR to make scanned documents searchable and automatically categorizes them.

Requirements

• A Breeze with at least 2 GB RAM
• Docker and Docker Compose

Docker Compose Setup

mkdir -p /opt/paperless && cd /opt/paperless
cat > docker-compose.yml <<'EOF'
services:
  broker:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped

  paperless:
    image: ghcr.io/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - broker
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"
    volumes:
      - paperless-data:/usr/src/paperless/data
      - paperless-media:/usr/src/paperless/media
      - /opt/paperless/consume:/usr/src/paperless/consume
      - /opt/paperless/export:/usr/src/paperless/export
    environment:
      PAPERLESS_REDIS: redis://broker:6379
      PAPERLESS_URL: https://docs.yourdomain.com
      PAPERLESS_SECRET_KEY: your_secret_key_here
      PAPERLESS_ADMIN_USER: admin
      PAPERLESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD: changeme
      PAPERLESS_OCR_LANGUAGE: eng

volumes:
  paperless-data:
  paperless-media:
EOF

docker compose up -d

Using Paperless

1. Drop documents into the /opt/paperless/consume folder
2. Paperless automatically processes, OCRs, and categorizes them
3. Access the web interface to search, tag, and organize

Features

• Automatic OCR on uploaded documents
• Full-text search across all documents
• Automatic tagging and categorization with AI
• Correspondent and document type detection
• Email consumption (auto-import from email)
• Mobile-friendly web interface