Snap a photo of your score sheet and get the digital game in seconds. Check the moves, export as PGN or open it right in Lichess.
Turn your handwritten chess score sheets into digital games in seconds.
Take a photo of your score sheet, and Chess Scanner reads the moves, generates the game and shows it next to your handwriting, so you can check every move at a glance.
HOW IT WORKS
• Scan the score sheet with the camera or pick a photo from your library
• The move grid, the notation and the last move are detected automatically
• Generate the game with Basic (fast and reliable) or Pro (for hard to read score sheets)
• Check the result: each move is shown next to the handwritten field, and the color shows how confident the recognition is
• Misread moves are corrected automatically where possible, and uncertain moves are marked for a quick look
• Fix a move in seconds with suggestions sorted by probability, filtered by piece if needed
ORGANIZE AND SHARE
• All games in one place, with search and filters by tournament, round, result and favorites
• Group games into tournaments and add player names, ratings, date and round
• Export single games or whole tournaments as PGN, or import your existing PGN files
• Open games in Lichess or Chess.com
• Analyze games and see the accuracy of both players, their mistakes and the evaluation over the game
• Find your games with Spotlight search
FOR TOURNAMENT DIRECTORS
Add the score sheets of both players. Both are used to generate the game, which makes the result even more reliable. Long games can span several sheets.
MADE FOR EVERY SCREEN
Works on iPhone and iPad, with the games list and the game side by side on iPad, and with dedicated layouts for iPhone Duo, folded and unfolded.
SUPPORTED NOTATIONS
• English: N/B/R/Q/K
• German: S/L/T/D/K
• Dutch: P/L/T/D/K
• Spanish / Italian: C/A/T/D/R
• French: C/F/T/D/R
• Portuguese: C/B/T/D/R
• Czech / Slovak: J/S/V/D/K
• Turkish: A/F/K/V/Ş
Other notations can be set up as well; they are read based on a similar supported notation, so recognition may be less accurate.
To generate a game, the score sheet images are sent to our servers. Generation usually takes a few seconds, depending on the legibility, the length of the game and your connection.
PREMIUM
• Pro generation for hard to read score sheets
• Score sheets of the second player
• Game analysis
• PGN export
• Open games in Lichess and Chess.com
• Cloud synchronisation of your games
• Unlimited chessboard scans
The core features stay free.
Questions or suggestions? Write to steffen@chessscanner.com
Terms of Use (EULA): https://chessscanner.com/eula
Very nice app that helps me with tournaments. Saves so much time to digitize chess games. Easy too use, good quality of recognition. Usually I have to correct one or two moves that I wrote unclear.
Buggy app. Not worth the money
123RandomMaverick123
I tested this app using my and my opponents scoresheet from a 60 move game (ie 120 moves in total). From my scoresheet the app got 31 moves wrong and from my opponents scoresheet 22 moves wrong. That is a very high error rate (52% and 37%). My opponent and I concluded we would be quicker to input the moves ourselves than use the app. Worse, you can’t even download the moves to PGN without paying for the app ($18 USD) so I don’t even know if that feature works or not. I do NOT recommend this app.
Developer Response
Hi, thank you for your message! The app always tries to generate a legal sequence of moves. This means that if it incorrectly recognizes one of the initial moves, it may not be able to generate the subsequent moves correctly, even if the notation itself is recognized correctly. Because of this, it isn't really possible to make statements such as "the app got 31 moves wrong." Whenever you correct a move, the app regenerates all subsequent moves. In your case, it would probably only take about five corrections to reconstruct the entire game correctly.I would really appreciate it if you could give the app another try. The following video may also help you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxWUcbopu08You can also send me the scoresheet at support@chessscanner.com, and I'll send you a video showing you how to digitize the game.
Not worth the money
Low Budget Dave
The app costs about $48 per year if you want to download the PGN. This might be worth the money if the app looked at subsequent moves to try to figure out what the note was, but it does not. In the game I input, the app got move 10 wrong, and instead of using the rest of the game to figure out move 10, it just moved the named piece to a random square for the rest of the game. In the time it took me to correct all the moves, I could have just about entered the whole game. The feature that is useful is that once I start entering corrections, it made new guesses, and I didn’t have to re-correct the rest of the game. I am just not sure this feature is worth $48 per year to me.
Developer Response
Hi, thank you for your message!Depending on your country, the app with all its features costs around $18 per year. During the initial move generation, the app considers subsequent moves and also updates when you manually trigger regeneration (though this is not recommended). It's generally faster and more battery-efficient to use automatic regeneration(without analyzing subsequent moves) and then adjust any potential mistakes.The regenerated moves depend on the detected texts, which you can view by tapping the score sheet icon at the top while in edit mode. The trick is not to look at the moves one by one but to check the background color of the moves displayed next to the score sheet, scanning from top to bottom to spot any incorrectly recognized moves.My best guess is that some fields on the score sheet were not recognized correctly in your game. There is also a helpful YouTube video explaining the app here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxWUcbopu08. It's definitely worth a try! :).If you'd like, you can send me your score sheet at steffen@chessscanner.com, and I can then share a video of my process for recording your game.
Only Useful If Paid
AnotherReviewer313
I only downloaded this to save time getting the PGN to study. After I learned I had to pay to do that or open in a chess app, I uninstalled
Developer Response
I understand your frustration regarding the cost of accessing PGN files. I aimed to make this solution as affordable as possible while still covering expenses. My main goal is to eliminate the need for physical score sheets and to make your games accessible at any time.Additionally, there is a web version where you pay per game, and the first three scans are free.I would love to hear your thoughts and any ideas you might have!
- Support for iPhone Duo, folded and unfolded
- Redesigned adding of games: all steps on one page, choose between Basic and Pro
- Automatic move correction: misread moves are repaired, uncertain moves are marked
- Animated board showing the last move and legal move hints
- iPad: games list and game side by side
- Delete several games at once
- Find your games with Spotlight search
- Sign in with Apple
- Much faster with large game libraries
- New tournaments are applied right away when adding a game
- Many small improvements and bug fixes
Version 1.8.0
The developer, Steffen Ratzke von Stoyentin, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
User Content
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
