DigiLocker or a document organiser app: what each is for
DigiLocker and a document organiser app sound like the same thing. They are not, and they are not really alternatives either: one holds what the government issues to you, the other holds everything else in your life.
What DigiLocker is for
DigiLocker is the Government of India’s digital document wallet. Its strength is issued documents: records that come to your DigiLocker directly from the department that issued them — Aadhaar, your driving licence, vehicle registration, many board and university certificates, and more. Because they come from the issuer, they are treated as equivalent to the originals under the Information Technology rules, and are accepted by many government offices and others.
On the road, the Ministry of Road Transport has told states to accept a driving licence and registration shown in DigiLocker or mParivahan in place of the paper ones. A photo, scan or screenshot kept anywhere else on your phone is not accepted — including in a document organiser.
DigiLocker also lets you upload your own scans, up to 1 GB, but those are only copies: nobody has verified them.
Use DigiLocker whenever you need to prove something with an official document: at a checkpoint, for a government application, or wherever DigiLocker is accepted in place of the original.
What a document organiser is for
Most of the paper in your life is not issued by a government department: the rent agreement, electricity bills, salary slips, insurance policies, hospital reports, warranties, your bank cards, a passport’s visa pages, anything from abroad. A document organiser is for keeping all of it together, finding it quickly, and getting the detail you need out of it.
Use a document organiser for everyday reference: the policy number for a claim, the landlord’s name, last month’s bill, the card’s expiry date, an address from a document you added a year ago.
Side by side
| DigiLocker | A document organiser | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Proving identity and eligibility with official documents | Keeping, finding and using everything else |
| Where documents come from | Issued directly by government departments; your own uploads as copies | Anything you scan, import or share into it |
| Legal standing | Issued documents are treated as originals | Copies, for reference |
| What it holds | Documents from participating issuers | Any document, in any format |
| Finding things | By document type and issuer | Names, tags, folders, and search inside the pages |
Using both
The simple split most people land on:
- DigiLocker for the documents you have to show an official: driving licence and registration on the road, Aadhaar where an official copy is needed, certificates for applications.
- A document organiser for the rest, and for quick copies of the IDs too — because most of the time you need the number, not the official record.
Where Document Organiser fits
Document Organiser is an iPhone and iPad app for the second half of that split. It stores any document in the format it came in, suggests a name and hashtags, and searches every word on every page. It reads the details from Aadhaar, PAN, passports, driving licences and bank cards, and marks an ID or card that is about to expire. Everything is encrypted on the device and locked with Face ID or your passcode, there is no account to create, and it works without an internet connection. It does not replace DigiLocker: what it keeps are your copies, not official records.
If you are keeping Aadhaar or PAN on your phone at all, read how to keep your Aadhaar and PAN safely on your phone.