paperless

Paperless-NGX CLI

Search and manage documents in Paperless-NGX using ppls.

Setup

npm install -g @nickchristensen/ppls
ppls config set hostname http://your-paperless-host
ppls config set token your-api-token

Searching Documents

# By name
ppls documents list --name-contains "invoice" --json

# By date range
ppls documents list --created-after 2024-01-01 --created-before 2024-12-31 --json

# By tag (OR — any of these tags)
ppls documents list --tag 5 --tag 12 --json

# By tag (AND — must have all)
ppls documents list --tag-all 5,12 --json

# Exclude tags
ppls documents list --tag-not 3 --json

# By correspondent
ppls documents list --correspondent 7 --json

# By document type
ppls documents list --document-type 2 --json

# Documents missing metadata
ppls documents list --no-correspondent --json
ppls documents list --no-tag --json

# Recently added/modified
ppls documents list --added-after 2024-06-01 --json
ppls documents list --modified-after 2024-06-01 --json

# Combine filters
ppls documents list --correspondent 7 --created-after 2024-01-01 --tag 5 --json

Viewing & Downloading

# Get full document details (includes OCR content)
ppls documents show 1234 --json

# Download single document
ppls documents download 1234 --output ~/Downloads/doc.pdf

# Download multiple documents
ppls documents download 1234 5678 --output-dir ~/Downloads

# Download original (pre-processed) version
ppls documents download 1234 --original

Uploading Documents

# Simple upload (Paperless auto-processes)
ppls documents add scan.pdf

# With metadata
ppls documents add receipt.pdf \
  --title "Store Receipt" \
  --correspondent 5 \
  --document-type 2 \
  --tag 10

Managing Metadata

# List tags/correspondents/document-types
ppls tags list --json
ppls correspondents list --json
ppls document-types list --json

# Create new
ppls tags add "Tax 2024" --color "#ff0000"
ppls correspondents add "New Vendor"
ppls document-types add "Contract"

# Update document metadata
ppls documents update 1234 --title "New Title" --correspondent 5 --tag 10

Tips

• Always use --json for AI/automation — it's the most parseable format
• Date formats: YYYY-MM-DD or full ISO 8601
• IDs are numeric — use list --json commands to find them
• Filters are repeatable: --tag 1 --tag 2 or --tag 1,2 both work
• Pagination: Use --page and --page-size for large result sets

Links

• ppls on GitHub
• Paperless-NGX Docs