Know what to grab
at the thrift store.

Photograph a shelf of VHS tapes. VHScan reads every title and tells you which ones are worth picking up, based on your taste.

Coming soon to the App Store

HOW IT WORKS

Snap

Take a photo of VHS tapes on the shelf. Spines, covers, stacks. Up to 5 photos per scan.

Scan

Every title gets identified and checked against your taste profile and your collection.

Score

Each tape gets a verdict with reasoning so you never walk past something good.

YES MAYBE NO

TASTE PROFILES

VHScan doesn't give generic recommendations. Pick a taste profile and every scan is filtered through that lens. Different profiles, wildly different verdicts on the same tape.

Popcorn
Comfort food on VHS.
nostalgia comfort 80s 90s
Sample shelf
YES The Goonies (1985)
Saturday morning adventure. The tape that defined a generation.
NO Saw (2004)
Torture porn. The opposite of the Saturday morning feeling.
??? Gremlins (1984)
Nostalgia says yes, but it's darker than you remember.
Gorehound
The messier the better.
horror slasher creature cult
Sample shelf
YES The Thing (1982)
Rob Bottin's creature work is the gold standard. No CGI, all nightmare.
NO The Notebook (2004)
Romance drama. Not even close to the genre territory.
??? Am. Werewolf in London ('81)
Legendary FX work, but the comedy leans hard.
Roundhouse
Bullets and biceps.
action martial arts stunts 80s
Sample shelf
YES Commando (1985)
Peak Schwarzenegger one-liners. The body count is the plot.
NO My Dinner with Andre (1981)
Two guys talking at dinner. The opposite of action.
??? Lethal Weapon (1987)
Great action, but it's really a buddy cop drama.
Fever Dream
Where did you FIND this?
cult underground oddities
Sample shelf
YES Hausu (1977)
Japanese fever dream. Defies every genre classification that exists.
NO Top Gun (1986)
Slick Navy recruitment ad. Zero weirdness detected.
??? Videodrome (1983)
Genuinely transgressive, but it's too well-known.
Glitch
The future went wrong.
sci-fi cyberpunk dystopia
Sample shelf
YES Blade Runner (1982)
The ur-text of cyberpunk cinema. Cold, precise, deeply unsettling.
NO Grease (1978)
Musical nostalgia. No technological anxiety whatsoever.
??? Westworld (1973)
Crichton's AI theme park is prescient, but more Western than sci-fi.

FEATURES

Multi-photo scanning

Capture entire shelves across multiple photos. Reads spines, covers, and stacked tapes.

Personalized to you

Verdicts are shaped by your taste profile. The more it knows what you like, the better it gets.

Zero setup

No accounts. No API keys. No configuration. Install it and start scanning.

Collection tracking

Track what you own and what you're looking for. Duplicates get flagged during scans automatically.

48,000 titles

Built-in database with posters, release years, and genres. Works offline for title lookups.

Background queue

Keep scanning while results process. Get a push notification when they're ready.