ScanSnack app

A small desktop app that scans with a ScanSnap iX1500 over Wi-Fi, without ScanSnap Home.

ScanSnack scans with a ScanSnap iX1500 or iX500 over Wi-Fi and saves every scan as a PDF, without ScanSnap Home, an account or a cloud service. It talks to the scanner directly, using the protocol described in the protocol write-ups.

Features

• Native desktop builds – macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows (x64 and ARM64) and Linux (x86_64).
• Scan over Wi-Fi – connect by IP address or let the app search the network. The connection is kept open, so the Scan button on the scanner’s touch panel starts a scan in the app.
• Profiles – color or black & white documents at 300 dpi, a quick 150 dpi mode and photos at 600 dpi.
• Double-sided, remove blank pages and remove background (turns gray or yellowish paper into pure white).
• Cropped to the paper – pages come out in the size of the sheet, the right way up.
• iX1500 and iX500: the app recognizes the model by itself. With an iX500, the Scan button turns “Load paper” and dims while the feeder is empty.
• Saved right away – every scan becomes its own PDF in the folder you choose, named after date and time. Pages scanned before a paper jam are kept.
• Document list – your scans stay in the list across restarts. Open a document to rotate, delete or reorder pages (drag and drop) and rename it; Save Changes rewrites the PDF.
• Clear help for paper problems – paper jam, double feed, open cover and similar errors come with a hint on what to do.
• Light and dark mode – follows the system setting.
• Updates with one click – on start the app checks GitHub for a new release and offers to install it; it then restarts as the new version. Later asks again next time, Skip This Version waits for the next one, and the check can be turned off in the Help menu.
• Scan from Image Capture and Preview – the AirScan bridge makes the scanner show up in the macOS scan dialog (Image Capture, German Digitale Bilder, and Preview), without a driver. It is a separate command (scansnap serve) that runs from the source code, not part of the app download.
• Open source – MIT license, no telemetry; the only request besides the scanner is the update check on GitHub. The source code is on GitHub.

What changed in each version is listed in the changelog.

ScanSnack is an early version. It is developed and tested on macOS; the Windows and Linux builds are made automatically and have not been tested with a scanner yet. The iX1500 and the iX500 are supported.

Getting started

1. Download the file for your system above.

2. Install it:

   • macOS: open the DMG and drag ScanSnack to Applications. The app is not signed by Apple, so macOS blocks the first launch: choose Open Anyway under System Settings → Privacy & Security. When asked, allow access to the local network.
   • Windows: unzip the file and start ScanSnack\ScanSnack.exe. At the SmartScreen prompt choose More info → Run anyway.
   • Linux: unpack the archive and start ScanSnack/ScanSnack. It needs the usual Qt system libraries (for example libxcb-cursor0 and libegl1); scansnack.desktop and scansnack.png are included for a menu entry.

3. Switch the scanner on, quit ScanSnap Home if it is running, and connect: enter the scanner’s IP address or choose Search Network.

4. Put paper in the feeder and press Scan, in the app or on the scanner.

ScanSnack is an independent project and not affiliated with PFU or Fujitsu; see the disclaimer.