A shoebox of paper, finally searchable
Somewhere there's a stack of scoresheets — tournament games, club nights, that one brilliancy you keep meaning to look at again. On paper, those games are slowly fading and almost impossible to search. ScanChess turns them into a clean digital archive you can actually use.
Take a photo of a handwritten scoresheet and our AI reads the notation for you, converting it into standard SAN moves and a downloadable PGN file. No retyping move by move, no squinting at your own handwriting at midnight. The games you played are preserved, replayable, and ready to study.
How it works
- Snap a photo. Upload a picture of your handwritten scoresheet from the web app or our WeChat mini-program.
- AI reads the moves. ScanChess OCR converts your notation into SAN, validates each move for legality, and flags anything it isn't sure about so you can fix it in seconds.
- Save and export. Replay the game in the interactive viewer, keep it in your account history, and download the PGN whenever you want it.
You start with free credits, and each scan uses credits — so you can try it on a game or two before digitizing the whole box.
Why digitize your scoresheets
- Never lose a game again. Paper smudges, tears, and disappears. A PGN in your account doesn't.
- Analyze anytime. Once a game is digital, drop the PGN into any engine or trainer and find out where it really turned.
- Share instantly. Send a clean PGN to a coach, a teammate, or your study group instead of a blurry photo.
- Build your own database. Every digitized game becomes part of a personal, searchable collection of your chess career.
Beyond scoresheets, ScanChess also reads a photo of a physical board into a FEN position — handy when you want to pick up an over-the-board game right where it stood.
Start with one game
Your best games deserve better than a folder in a drawer. Digitize a single scoresheet today, see the moves come back to life, and decide how much of your history you want to bring online.
Want to go deeper? Read How to analyze your chess games from scoresheets, or if the format is new to you, start with What is PGN?.