Supposedly docker volumes are faster than plain bind mounts; but I’ve not really noticed a difference.

They also allow you to use docker commands to backup and restore volumes.

Finally you can specify storage drivers, which let you do things like mount a network share (ssh, samba, nfs, etc) or a cloud storage solution directly to the container.

Personally I just use bind mounts for pretty much every bit of persistent data. I prefer to keep my compose files alongside the container data organized to my standards in an easy to find folder. I also like being able to navigate those files without having to use docker commands, and regularly back them up with borg.

I just paid the whole 4$ for the pro version and to support an otherwise free app I’ve quite enjoyed.

No ads/tracking anymore.

Devs gotta eat.

Ssh and X-Plore File Explorer.

Internal, sd card, ssh, ftp(s), google drive, dropbox, and a bunch of other cloud providers; treats it all like one big file system that I can casually copy/move files between.

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.

And partly because I use the android app as my main interaction with Paperless.

We taught each other something new: I didn’t know there was a mobile app. Imma go check that out :)

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.

For this, Bind-mounts are your friend:

Volumes:

- /srv/paperless-ngx/consume:/usr/src/paperless/consume

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.

The way you would do this with paperless is to create a user in paperless for your accountant to login to.

You would then grant that user permission to view/edit either: a tag, a storage path, a document type, a correspondent, or just individual documents. (or any/all of the above).

When it comes to providing external share links that anyone can use; you can only share single files at a time in paperless. If that’s what you’re looking for, I’d recommend FileBrowser. You can create a permanent share link that allows anyone that views it to view the contents of a folder and download each file or the whole collection as a .zip. You can even add a password required to view the page if you like.

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 them to my server automatically where paperless imports them.

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.

It stores the documents in the form they were imported in a folder called ‘/originals/’, with the contents sorted according to the rules you set in paperless. You can back that up however you’d like.