matrix-paperless-ingest

Monitors a Matrix room for PDF and JPEG files and uploads them to Paperless-ngx. Designed for rooms bridged from WhatsApp via mautrix-whatsapp.

• Processes the full room history on startup (skips files already in Paperless)
• Listens for new files indefinitely
• Retries failed uploads with exponential backoff
• State is tracked in a local SQLite database

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• uv (curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh)
• libolm + python-olm — must be installed via the system package manager because python-olm's build system is incompatible with modern CMake

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S libolm python-olm

Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libolm3 python3-olm

Setup

1. Clone and install dependencies

git clone <repo>
cd matrix-paperless-ingest
uv venv --system-site-packages
uv sync --no-install-package python-olm

2. Create a Matrix bot account

Create a new Matrix account for the bot on your homeserver (e.g. via Element), then invite it to the room you want to monitor and accept the invite.

3. Generate a Matrix access token

Log in with the bot account to obtain an access token and device ID:

curl -XPOST 'https://jeena.net/_matrix/client/v3/login' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "type": "m.login.password",
    "user": "@yourbot:jeena.net",
    "password": "yourpassword"
  }'

Copy access_token and device_id from the response. You can then delete the password from your notes — it is not needed again.

4. Find your Matrix room ID

In Element: open the room → Settings → Advanced → Internal room ID. It looks like !abc123:jeena.net.

5. Find your Paperless inbox tag ID

In Paperless-ngx, go to Tags and note the ID of your inbox tag, or look it up via the API:

curl -H 'Authorization: Token YOUR_TOKEN' https://paperless.jeena.net/api/tags/

6. Configure

cp .env.example .env
$EDITOR .env

Fill in all values:

MATRIX_HOMESERVER=https://jeena.net
MATRIX_USER=@yourbot:jeena.net
MATRIX_ACCESS_TOKEN=syt_...
MATRIX_DEVICE_ID=ABCDEFGH
MATRIX_ROOM_ID=!abc123:jeena.net

PAPERLESS_URL=https://paperless.jeena.net
PAPERLESS_TOKEN=your_paperless_api_token
PAPERLESS_INBOX_TAG_ID=1

7. Test

uv run --no-sync python ingest.py

Watch the logs. It will process all historical messages, then listen for new ones. Press Ctrl-C to stop.

Install as a systemd service

# Create a dedicated user
sudo useradd -r -s /bin/false matrix-paperless-ingest

# Copy the project
sudo cp -r . /opt/matrix-paperless-ingest
sudo chown -R matrix-paperless-ingest:matrix-paperless-ingest /opt/matrix-paperless-ingest

# Install and start the service
sudo cp paperless-ingest.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now paperless-ingest

# Check logs
sudo journalctl -u paperless-ingest -f

Viewing retry queue

sqlite3 state.db "SELECT filename, status, retry_count, datetime(next_retry, 'unixepoch') FROM processed_events WHERE status = 'failed';"

Moving to a new server

1. Copy the project directory (including .env and state.db)
2. Install uv, libolm3, and python3-olm on the new server
3. Run uv venv --system-site-packages && uv sync --no-install-package python-olm
4. Install the systemd service as above