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Paperless-NGX - Document Management

Paperless-NGX is a document management system that scans, indexes, and organizes your physical documents digitally.

Quick Facts

  • Version: Latest
  • URL: https://docs.collabrains.eu
  • Database: PostgreSQL 16 (via Coolify)
  • Cache: Redis 7.4
  • Status: ✅ Operational
  • Config Path: /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk/

Features

  • 📄 Document scanning and OCR
  • 🏷️ Automatic tagging and classification
  • 🔍 Full-text search
  • 👥 Multi-user support with permissions
  • 🔗 OIDC/OAuth integration (Authentik)
  • 📧 Email import capability
  • 🗂️ Custom document types

Quick Start

Access Web Interface

  • URL: https://docs.collabrains.eu
  • Default credentials: Check /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk/.env
  • SERVICE_USER_PAPERLESS
  • SERVICE_PASSWORD_PAPERLESS

Upload Documents

  1. Place PDFs/images in: /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk/consume/
  2. Paperless automatically processes them
  3. Documents appear in "Inbox" for review

Search Documents

  • Use full-text search in web interface
  • Search by tags, dates, document types
  • Supports regex patterns

Configuration

Environment Variables

Location: /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk/.env

Key settings:

PAPERLESS_ADMIN_USER=ngsklOl1YK6SwtQw
PAPERLESS_ADMIN_PASSWORD=5X3BzxzgKBzD0AxV8h3SL0aoQ1upPL4I
PAPERLESS_URL=https://docs.collabrains.eu
PAPERLESS_REDIS=redis://redis:6379
PAPERLESS_SECRET_KEY=ZXIyRTIxeGVqTlptcjRsVkltUGRBdXpHQ04xZUxyRGtXSE1GVXJBbmFScW1TUzZLQXJTTVlNOEF6d2lZa0ZUdg==

Authentik SSO Integration

Paperless can authenticate via Authentik:

PAPERLESS_APPS=allauth.socialaccount.providers.openid_connect
PAPERLESS_SOCIALACCOUNT_PROVIDERS='{"openid_connect":{"APPS":[{"provider_id":"authentik","name":"Authentik","client_id":"paperless-client-id-placeholder","secret":"paperless-secret-placeholder","settings":{"server_url":"https://auth.collabrains.eu/application/o/paperless/.well-known/openid-configuration"}}]}}'
PAPERLESS_SOCIAL_AUTO_SIGNUP=true

Common Operations

View Logs

docker logs paperless-woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk --tail 50 -f

Process Consume Directory

Documents in /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk/consume/ are processed automatically:

# Manual trigger (if needed)
docker exec paperless-woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk document_consumer

Database Backup

# Backup PostgreSQL database
docker exec postgres-PAPERLESS_ID pg_dump -U paperless paperless > paperless-$(date +%Y%m%d).sql

# Verify
file paperless-*.sql

Restart Service

cd /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk
docker compose restart

Storage Management

Check Storage Usage

# Media files size
du -sh /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk/media/

# Database size
docker exec postgres-PAPERLESS_ID psql -U paperless paperless -c "SELECT pg_size_pretty(pg_database_size('paperless'));"

Disk Cleanup

# Archive old documents to free space
# Use Paperless web interface: Admin → Cleanup to remove deleted documents

# Clear temp files
rm -rf /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk/consume/*_processed

Troubleshooting

Redis Authentication Error

Symptom: Container crashes on startup with "Authentication required"

Solution:

cd /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk
docker compose down
docker compose up -d
# Wait for health check

Documents Not Processing

  1. Check consume directory permissions
  2. View logs: docker logs paperless-woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk
  3. Ensure Redis is healthy: docker ps | grep redis
  4. Verify storage space: df -h /

OCR Not Working

  • Tesseract engine included in image
  • Check supported languages in Paperless settings
  • Restart for language changes: docker compose restart

High Memory Usage

  • OCR is memory-intensive during processing
  • Check docker stats to monitor
  • Consider limiting concurrent processing in settings
  • Ensure 8GB swap available: free -h

Advanced Features

Email Import

  1. Configure email account in Paperless admin
  2. Paperless fetches emails automatically
  3. Attachments become documents

Document Types

  • Custom document types defined in admin
  • Helps organize and classify documents
  • Search by type using web interface

Export

  • Export documents to /data/coolify/services/woq978nbzog6dmddhrmeujvk/export/
  • Supports multiple formats (PDF, images)

Monitoring

Container Health

docker ps | grep paperless
# Should show "healthy" status

Metrics (if Prometheus enabled)

  • Document processing rate
  • OCR success rate
  • Database query time
  • Redis cache hits/misses