How to Instantly Scan Documents and Add Photos on Your Mac Using Continuity Camera

One of the benefits of going with an all-Apple ecosystem is having devices that work together, and Apple’s Continuity Camera is a great example. Using an iPhone or iPad, you can quickly get images into documents on a Mac.

As with all things, there are some prerequisites that you need to have in place before you can take advantage of Continuity Camera. You’ll need to have a Mac and an iPhone or iPad, and both will need to have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled. They’ll also need to be signed into the same iCloud account, and that account will also need to have two-factor authentication enabled. There is a minimum software level required, too: macOS Mojave on the Mac, and iOS 12 on the iPhone or iPad.

There are plenty of apps with which you can use Continuity Camera, but they are all first-party Apple solutions. It’s unclear whether that is a limitation or something that will change in time, but at the time of writing the following apps all support Continuity Camera:

Finder
Keynote
Mail
Messages
Notes
Numbers
Pages
TextEdit

With all of those conditions met, using Continuity Camera falls into two different situations: taking a photo or scanning a document.

Taking a Photo

To get started, open the application and document where you want to import the photo on your Mac. Next, right-click on the document or window and select the “Import from iPhone or iPad” option, followed by “Take Photo.”