paperless-ngx v3.0.0 released on 22-07-2026
paperless-ngx v3.0.0 is out now. Administrators and operators will need to plan for migrations and configuration changes because this release includes a number of breaking changes, a search backend swap and expanded AI/LLM features.
See the project’s GitHub release and the updated v3 migration documentation for full notes, detailed upgrade steps and links to the individual changes.
What’s in this release
- Breaking changes and migration work: removal of positional arguments from pre/post-consume scripts; drop of Python 3.10 support; removal of API v1 compatibility and API versions <9; removal of document & thumbnail encryption and the pybzar barcode reader; consumer behaviour and advanced DB settings have been refactored.
- Search backend replacement: Whoosh has been replaced with Tantivy — text search is now unified on Tantivy with improvements to performance, ASCII folding, CJK handling and index stability; a full reindex is required after upgrading.
- AI, UX and platform improvements: Paperless AI and LLM/embeddings work (including remote OCR via Azure AI and multiple vector-store backends during beta), document file versions, sharelink bundles, a document parser plugin framework, UI upgrades (Angular) and database indexes for common queries to improve responsiveness.
Upgrade notes
- Breaking/deprecations — review the v3 migration docs and upgrade Python to a supported version (>=3.11). Update any pre/post-consume scripts to the new invocation semantics, review API clients for v9+ compatibility and remove or migrate uses of document encryption and pybzar before upgrading.
- Rollback and reindex — export full backups before migrating, test consumer and consumer-related workflows (and AI features) in a staging environment, and schedule a monitored reindex of search data after upgrading; restore from backups if a rollback is necessary.
Share comments on your upgrade experience or any issues you encounter so others can learn from the migration work.
