Changelog
What changed, and when.
Tactics from the games you actually played
- After a Stockfish review, ScanChess now pulls the forcing shots you missed — captures, checks and mates you had and did not play — and lets you solve them on the board. Save a set to practice again later. The positions come from your own games, including scanned scoresheets, not from a public puzzle bank.
The site in eight languages, a sharper eye for doubtful moves, and pairings for a whole round
- ScanChess now reads in Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Italian and Russian as well as English and Chinese — on the website and in the iOS app. Pick yours from the globe in the header, or from Language in Settings.
- A misread move is usually still a legal move, so legality alone never caught it. Scans are now also checked for material behaving in a way no real game does — a piece left to be taken for nothing that nobody takes — and the plies involved are flagged for review with the reason. Nothing is rewritten.
- Notation people actually write is now understood rather than rejected: a pawn written with a P prefix, long algebraic like e2-e4, a capture that names the piece taken (BxN), and file-takes-file (cxd).
- When a move is doubtful, the review step now offers the legal moves that look closest to the ink instead of an open question, and an answer that would stop the game replaying is dropped rather than saved.
- Batch scanning learned the arbiter's workflow. Photos named like R3B7p2.jpg or filed under Round 3/Board 7 are grouped and placed on their own, and a pairing list — CSV, a PGN roster or JSON, from any program — files every game under the right players, ratings, round and board. Download the round as one PGN, plus a CSV of what still needs a human eye.
Lines on the board, notes on the game, and a batch mode for whole rounds
- Click an engine line and it plays out on the board — step through it move by move, and while the engine is on, the board shows its best move as an arrow for the position you are looking at.
- Annotate your game: write a comment on any position, and record alternative lines — typed in, or saved straight from an engine preview. Comments and variations are saved with the game, travel with share links, and export inside the PGN.
- Scanning a whole round? The new batch page takes the stack of scoresheets at once, groups multi-page sheets into one game each, and files every game into your library on its own.
Engine analysis, opening names, and games that belong to both players
- Stockfish runs in your browser. Turn it on under the board to see the evaluation and best lines, or review the whole game to have every inaccuracy, mistake and blunder marked with an accuracy score per side. Nothing is uploaded.
- Every game now names its opening (ECO code and Lichess name) in the workbench, the share page, the library and the PGN header.
- Scoresheets written with German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian or Chinese piece letters, and figurine notation, are read as such and translated to standard SAN.
- One click sends a game to Lichess and opens it there. On a share link, "Save to my library" files a copy under your own account — on the web and in the iOS app.
- The library sorts by saved time, game date or player name, and filters by result.
The fixes from the September review
- You can upload a scoresheet and run your first scan before verifying your email; verification is asked for from the second scan on.
- A game you are still correcting survives a reload: the moves and images come back where you left them.
- Low-confidence moves are flagged again, each with the alternatives the rules allow, and you can insert or delete a move instead of only retyping one. A game can be saved while corrections are still pending.
- Game details (players, event, date, result) are editable after a scan, and a saved game can be exported as PGN straight from History.
- Share links can be turned off again, and a link you have revoked stops working immediately.
- Fixed: the mobile menu would not open; sessions expired mid-visit instead of refreshing quietly; the pricing page described the plans incorrectly.
- Honest copy: the home page no longer implies error-free output, the About page says who builds ScanChess and what it does not do, the tool pages load faster and never show an empty board, and Chinese articles show a real reading time.
A link your opponent can open
- Every saved game can have a public link. Whoever opens it sees the board, the moves and the PGN without an account.
- Scans that were refused because of where the AI request came from are retried from a US route automatically, instead of failing and refunding.
No more confident guesses
- When a scanned game stops making sense, the move that breaks it is marked and the rest is left as written. Automatic correction is off; changes are yours to make.
- Board photos are read twice and cross-checked before a position is reported, and an unreadable image is now reported as unreadable rather than as a plausible-looking position.
- Board mode shows a real photo → position demo, and the free tools sit above the fold on their pages.
Free tools, and Pro+
- Three tools that need no account: a PGN viewer, a board editor that produces FEN, and a PGN validator that finds the move that breaks a game.
- Pro+ ($19.99/month or $119.99/year) adds 500 credits every 30 days for clubs and coaches who scan a lot. Web subscribers can move between Pro and Pro+.
- Scanning the same photo twice no longer charges twice: the earlier result is returned for free.
- The scan-complete email is back, and the API now runs on Cloudflare, closer to you.
Accounts, billing and consent
- A settings page: your plan and credits, display name, password, referral code, language, billing history, and one button that downloads every game you have saved.
- Subscriptions can be cancelled on the pricing page in two clicks. Cancelling stops the next charge; Pro and your credits last out the period you paid for.
- Analytics now ask first. Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity do not load until you accept, and the choice can be changed in settings at any time.
- A pricing page that shows what a scan actually costs, a refund policy, a contact page, and a security page.
- The first Chinese translations of the guides, and a language link on every article that has one.
Pay on the web
- Pro can now be bought on the website, not only in the iOS app. Checkout is handled by Waffo, our merchant of record.
- Scoresheets that quote a number — "1.d4" written with the move number attached — no longer break the rest of the scan.
Delete your account yourself
- Account deletion moved out of email and onto a page: /delete-account removes your profile, games and uploaded images for good.
- Email from ScanChess now goes through Cloudflare, which fixed the verification messages that were landing in spam.
Something you would like changed? Contact support