Help

Linenfold keeps your family’s bills, policies, warranties and IDs on your phone, reads them for you, and reminds you before anything runs out. This page covers everything it does.

Getting started

Open Linenfold in Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox. There is no sign-up. On the first screen you can add the names of the people in your family; Linenfold uses them to tell whose passport or licence a document is.

Add it to your home screen

• Android (Chrome): tap the ⋮ menu, then Add to Home screen or Install app.
• iPhone (Safari): tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.

Installed, Linenfold opens like an app, shows a badge when something needs attention, and the browser is much less likely to clear its storage.

Adding documents

Tap + and choose Take a photo or Choose photos or PDFs. On a computer, use Add documents or drop files anywhere on the page. You can add many files at once; they are read one after another and you can keep using the app meanwhile. If you close it halfway, reading picks up again next time.

Linenfold accepts JPG, PNG, WebP and HEIC photos (HEIC opens on iPhone and Mac Safari) and PDF files up to 40 MB. Adding the same file twice is caught and you’re shown the copy you already have.

Tips for photos that read well

• Lay the page flat, in daylight or bright light, with no shadow of your phone on it.
• Fit the whole page in the frame, one page per photo. For multi-page policies, the PDF from the insurer’s email is better than photos.
• Hold the phone straight above the page rather than at an angle.

Password-protected PDFs

Insurers and banks often lock PDFs with your date of birth (for example 14061988) or part of your PAN. Linenfold asks for the password once and keeps it on your device so the PDF opens next time.

What Linenfold finds, and checking it

For each document Linenfold looks for the type (electricity bill, health insurance, passport and so on), the company, the amount, the bill month, due and expiry dates, vehicle number, product and policy or account number. It then names the document the way you would, for example Electricity bill, Aug 2026, ₹2,300 or PUC certificate, KA 05 MN 4821.

When it can’t find something that matters, such as a policy’s end date, the document is marked Check details and appears on the home screen. Open it, correct or fill in the field, and it saves as you go. If everything is right, tap Looks right.

• Warranties: if the invoice says “1 year warranty” but the purchase date wasn’t legible, enter the purchase date and Linenfold works out when the warranty ends.
• Titles: type your own title at any time. To go back to the automatic one, tap the suggestion under the title field.
• Read again: at the bottom of a document, Read again reruns the reader. It only fills in what it finds; your own entries stay.
• Everything it read: open Text read from the document to see or copy the full text.

Search

Search looks at titles, names, companies, amounts, months and every word read from each document. Some things to try:

• AC warranty, fridge, PUC, DL: common short forms and everyday words are understood.
• Priya passport: family names.
• august, 2300, KA05MN4821: months, amounts and vehicle numbers.

If no document has all of your words, Linenfold shows the closest matches instead, so a typo won’t leave you with an empty page.

Reminders

Linenfold turns due dates and expiry dates into reminders:

• Bills: 3 days before the due date
• PUC: 7 days before it lapses
• Insurance and warranties: 30 days before
• Driving licence and vehicle RC: 60 days before
• Passport: 6 months before, since many countries need six months’ validity to enter

Change the timing on any document under Remind me, or turn it off. Tap Renewed (or Paid for a bill) when you’ve dealt with it; Undo puts it back. When you add the renewed policy or next month’s bill, the old reminder goes quiet on its own. Documents filed after their date has already passed are kept as records, without a reminder.

Getting alerts when Linenfold is closed

Web apps can’t reliably alert you while they’re closed, so Linenfold uses your phone’s calendar, which can. Tap Add to calendar on a document, or Add all to calendar on the Reminders screen. This downloads a calendar file; open it and your calendar app offers to add the events. Each event alerts at 9 am on the reminder day and again the day before.

• iPhone: open the downloaded file and tap Add All.
• Android: open the file from the download notification or the Files app and choose your calendar. If nothing offers to open it, import it at calendar.google.com under Settings › Import & export.

Export again after adding documents. Events are matched by document, so they’re updated rather than duplicated in most calendar apps.

Backups and sharing with family

Your documents live on your device. If the phone is lost or reset, they’re gone unless you have a backup. There are two kinds, and you can use both.

Encrypted backup and sync (optional)

In Settings › Backup and restore › Back up & sync, enter your email and the 6-digit code we send, then choose a backup passphrase. Your documents and photos are encrypted on your device with that passphrase before they’re uploaded. Our server stores only scrambled data and can’t read it. After that, changes back up by themselves in the background, and changes made offline wait until you’re back online.

• Save the recovery key. It’s shown once, when you turn backup on. If you forget your passphrase and lose your recovery key, your backup can’t be recovered, by you or by us. There is no reset.
• New phone: sign in with the same email, enter your passphrase (or recovery key) and your documents, photos and family names come back.
• Two phones: sign in on both and they stay in step. If the same document was changed on both before they synced, the newest change is kept and the other is saved as a “conflict copy” so nothing is lost.
• What our server can see: your email, how many items you have and how big they are, when they change, and which devices you use. Not your documents, their details or your family names.
• Stopping: Sign out of this device keeps both the documents here and the backup. Delete cloud backup removes everything stored online and keeps the documents on this device.

Backup file

Go to Settings › Backup and restore and tap Save backup file.

• Lock it with a passphrase. Backups contain IDs, so this is on by default. The file is encrypted with AES-256. Without the passphrase nobody can open it, and that includes you, so choose one you’ll remember.
• Keep it off the phone: Google Drive, iCloud, email to yourself, a computer or a pen drive.
• Restore on any device with Restore from file. Restoring adds documents that aren’t already there; it never deletes or overwrites anything. Backups saved before Linenfold was renamed (.almirah files) restore the same way.
• Sharing with your spouse or parents: use encrypted backup and sync with a shared account, or give them the backup file and the passphrase and repeat whenever you’ve added new documents.

Deleting

Deleting a document moves it to Recently deleted (Settings › Storage) for 30 days, where you can restore it. After 30 days it is removed for good. Erase this device in Settings removes every document, name and setting; use it before giving the phone away.

Troubleshooting

“Couldn’t read” on a document

Open it and tap Try again. The first time you add a document, Linenfold downloads its text reader (about 7 MB) and keeps it for offline use, so the first scan needs an internet connection. If a document still can’t be read, choose Enter details myself.

“This browser can’t open HEIC photos”

Chrome on Windows and Android can’t open iPhone HEIC photos. On the iPhone, set Settings › Camera › Formats to Most Compatible, or share the photo as a JPEG.

My documents disappeared

Browsers delete a site’s data when you clear browsing data, use a private or incognito window, or, rarely, when the device runs very low on space. Install Linenfold to your home screen and check Storage in Settings shows it as protected. Keep a recent backup.

The details are often wrong

Try a flatter, brighter photo, or use the PDF if you have one. Linenfold reads printed English text; handwriting and documents only in other languages won’t be read, but you can still store them and fill in the details.