docspell/website/site/content/docs/tools/paperless-import.md

+++ title = "Paperless Import" description = "Import your data from paperless." weight = 60 +++

Introduction

Coming from paperless, the script in tools/import-paperless can be used to get started by importing your data from paperless into docspell.

https://github.com/eikek/docspell/tree/master/tools/import-paperless

The script imports the files and also tags and correspondents.

{% infobubble(mode="info", title="⚠ Please note") %}

The script was written some while ago. It currently doesn't work out of the box, but is a good starting point as the issues are most probably fixed by adjusting some api calls. Pull requests are very welcome! See this issue.

{% end %}

Usage

Copy the script to the machine where paperless is running. Run it with the following arguments:

1. URL of Docspell, including http(s)
2. Username for Docspell, possibly including Collective (if other name as user)
3. Password for Docspell
4. Path to Paperless' database file (db.sqlite3). When using Paperless with docker, it is in the mapped directory /usr/src/paperless/data
5. Path to Paperless' document base directory. When using Paperless with docker, it is the mapped directory /usr/src/paperless/media/documents/origin/

Some settings can be changed inside the script, right at the top:

• LIMIT="LIMIT 0" (default: inactive): For testing purposes, limits the number of tags and correspondents read from Paperless (this will most likely lead to warnings when processing the documents)

• LIMIT_DOC="LIMIT 5" (default: inactive): For testing purposes, limits the number of documents and document-to-tag relations read from Paperless

• SKIP_EXISTING_DOCS=true (default: true): Won't touch already existing documents. If set to false documents, which exist already, won't be uploaded again, but the tags, correspondent, date and title from Paperless will be applied.

  Warning In case you already had set these information in Docspell, they will be overwritten!