DigiLocker — Setup and Use

What is DigiLocker and who runs it?

DigiLocker is the Government of India's digital document wallet, operated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) as part of the Digital India programme. It does two distinct things: it lets government issuers push your official records straight into your account, and it gives you a private drive to store your own scanned files.

The distinction between those two functions is the single most important thing to understand about DigiLocker, because only one of them carries legal weight.

• Issued documents are pushed to you by the issuing authority: Aadhaar by UIDAI, driving licence and vehicle RC by the transport department, marksheets by an education board. Each carries the digital signature of the issuer.
• Uploaded documents are files you scan and put in your Drive yourself. They are unverified scanned copies, and an official may still ask for the original.

Under Rule 9A of the Information Technology (Preservation and Retention of Information by Intermediaries providing Digital Locker Facilities) Rules, 2016, issuers may issue and requesters may accept digitally signed certificates or documents shared from a subscriber's digital locker account at par with the physical documents. That rule is what makes an issued DigiLocker document acceptable in place of an original, and it does not extend to your own uploads.

DigiLocker has become one of the most-used Digital India services, with adoption reported in the tens of crores of registered users and hundreds of crores of documents issued. Treat any specific count you see as a point-in-time figure and check the current number on digilocker.gov.in.

Who can use DigiLocker?

You can use DigiLocker if:

• You have an Indian mobile number to create the account against.
• You have an Aadhaar number with a linked mobile number, if you want to pull issued documents. Aadhaar is how issuers identify which records belong to you.
• You hold documents from an onboarded issuer. Central issuers such as UIDAI, the Income Tax Department, Parivahan and CBSE are widely available; state boards, revenue departments and universities vary.

You cannot use the full service if:

• You have no Aadhaar number. You can still open a mobile-only account and use the Drive, but issued documents will not appear, because there is no way to match records to you.
• Your Aadhaar is not linked to a working mobile number. Authentication uses an OTP sent to the Aadhaar-linked number, so this must be fixed at an Aadhaar enrolment or update centre first.
• Your issuer has not onboarded. If your state board or university has not joined DigiLocker, your marksheet simply will not be available to fetch, and no amount of retrying will produce it.

There is no eligibility test beyond this, no income criterion, no age bar for holding an account, and no application to be approved. If you can authenticate, you have an account.

What do you need to sign up?

The last row catches people out. Linking Aadhaar does not automatically fill your account with everything. Each issuer's record is fetched separately, and most need their own key. You cannot pull a Class 10 marksheet without the roll number and year of passing, or a driving licence without the licence number.

How to set up a DigiLocker account

1. Open digilocker.gov.in in a browser, or install the official DigiLocker app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Check the publisher is the Government of India before installing.
2. Select Sign Up.
3. Enter your details, full name, date of birth, gender, mobile number and, optionally, an email ID.
4. Set a 6-digit security PIN. You will enter this at every subsequent login, so choose something you will remember but which is not your birth year.
5. Enter the OTP sent to your mobile number to confirm it.
6. Enter your Aadhaar number when prompted, and authenticate with the OTP sent to your Aadhaar-linked mobile number. This step is what unlocks issued documents; skipping it leaves you with a Drive-only account.
7. Your account is created. Log in with the mobile number and the 6-digit PIN.

The whole process takes about five minutes provided your Aadhaar-linked mobile number is reachable.

How to fetch your issued documents

1. Log in and open the Issued Documents section.
2. Browse the issuer list by category; Aadhaar and identity, transport, education, insurance, land records, and so on — or search for the issuer by name.
3. Select the specific document type, for example "Driving Licence" under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
4. Enter the identifier that document needs: a driving licence number and date of birth, a vehicle registration number and chassis digits, a PAN, or a board roll number with year of passing.
5. Consent to the issuer sharing the record, then select Get Document. The record is fetched and appears under Issued Documents with the issuer's digital signature.
6. Open the document to view it, or download the PDF to keep an offline copy.

Repeat this for each record you want. Documents fetched once stay in the account and refresh from the issuer.

How to upload your own documents

1. Open the Drive section of your account.
2. Select Upload and choose the file from your device.
3. Assign a document type from the list so the file is filed correctly rather than sitting untagged.
4. Save. The file is now in your Drive.

Remember what this is and is not. Uploaded files are your own scanned copies, are not verified by anyone, and do not carry the Rule 9A equivalence. Use the Drive for things no issuer provides. A will, property papers, old certificates, insurance documents from a non-onboarded insurer, and rely on Issued Documents wherever an official record exists.

How to share a DigiLocker document

DigiLocker lets you share a document with an authorised agency or individual as a secure digital link instead of handing over a physical photocopy. The recipient opens the link and sees the digitally signed record, which is what makes it verifiable rather than merely legible.

In practice this replaces three habits worth dropping: carrying attested photocopies, emailing scans of your Aadhaar, and posting document images in WhatsApp groups. A shared DigiLocker link is traceable, tied to the issuer's signature, and does not leave a permanent copy of your Aadhaar in someone's gallery.

What can go wrong, and how to fix it

• OTP not received on Aadhaar authentication. The mobile number linked to your Aadhaar is not the one you are holding. Update it at an Aadhaar enrolment or update centre; DigiLocker cannot override this.
• Issued document not found. Either the issuer has not onboarded for your state or board, or the identifier you entered does not match the issuer's record. Check the roll number, year of passing or licence number character by character.
• Name mismatch between Aadhaar and the issuer's record. The issuer will not release a record it cannot match. Correct the name at the source, with the board, the transport office or UIDAI, and retry.
• Forgotten 6-digit PIN. Use the forgot-PIN flow, which sends an OTP to your registered mobile number.
• Lost access to the registered mobile number. Update the number linked to your Aadhaar first, because DigiLocker authentication depends on it.
• Uploaded document rejected by an office. Expected, uploads are unverified. Fetch the issued version instead, or produce the original.
• A verifier refuses to accept a DigiLocker document. Point to Rule 9A of the 2016 digital locker rules, under which issued documents are accepted at par with physical documents. Showing the issuer's digital signature on the PDF usually settles it.

Help and grievance redressal

• Support section on digilocker.gov.in, which carries the current contact channels and a help centre. Use the contact route published there rather than a number found on a third-party site.
• The issuer, not DigiLocker, for any dispute about the content of a document. DigiLocker only carries the record; a wrong date of birth on a marksheet has to be corrected by the board that issued it.
• UIDAI for Aadhaar-linked mobile number problems, which are the root cause of most DigiLocker login failures.

DigiLocker is completely free. Creating an account, linking Aadhaar, fetching issued documents, uploading files and sharing them cost nothing, and there is no paid tier. A steady stream of lookalike apps and websites charge Rs 20 to Rs 200 to "create your DigiLocker" or to "download your Aadhaar from DigiLocker", every one of them is reselling a free MeitY service, and several exist to capture your Aadhaar number and OTP. Install only the official DigiLocker app published by the Government of India, type digilocker.gov.in yourself rather than following a link sent by SMS or WhatsApp, and never share your OTP or 6-digit PIN with anyone, including a caller claiming to be from DigiLocker support.

How to check your application status

DigiLocker has no approval queue to track since an account is created instantly once your mobile OTP and, where used, Aadhaar OTP are verified. What you actually need to check is whether a specific issued document has come through correctly and whether your account's authentication is still valid. Use these checks instead of waiting for a status update that will never arrive.

• Check whether a document actually fetched. Log in and open Issued Documents. A record that fetched successfully shows the issuer's name, the date it was issued or last updated, and a digital signature icon on the PDF. If a document you requested is missing from this list, the fetch did not go through, most often because the identifier entered did not match the issuer's record.
• Verify a document's digital signature before relying on it. Open the PDF and check for the visible signature panel that names the issuing authority. A document without this is either an upload you added yourself or a fetch that failed partway; either way it is not the equivalent of an issued record.
• Check your Aadhaar linking status. From the profile or settings section, confirm whether Aadhaar shows as verified. If it shows unverified despite completing the OTP step, log out and repeat the Aadhaar authentication step rather than assuming it will resolve on its own.
• Check your activity log for a record of what was fetched or shared. DigiLocker keeps a history of documents fetched into your account and links you have shared. This is the closest thing to a transaction history and is useful if you need to confirm you actually pulled a particular marksheet or RC on a given date.
• If a document is missing and you believe the issuer has onboarded, the correct next step is not to keep retrying the same request. Re-check the exact identifier (licence number, roll number, year of passing, PAN) against your physical document, since a single mismatched digit is the most common cause, then retry once.
• For anything unresolved after that, use the support section on digilocker.gov.in rather than a third-party number, since DigiLocker itself has no call centre that can look up an individual fetch attempt beyond what your own activity log shows.

Common reasons for rejection

DigiLocker does not "reject" an account application the way a scheme does, but three distinct failure points cause most of the problems people describe as a rejection: sign-up itself failing, an issued document not appearing, and a shared document being refused by whoever is checking it.

• Aadhaar OTP never arrives during sign-up. This happens when the mobile number you are holding is not the number currently linked to your Aadhaar. DigiLocker sends the OTP only to the Aadhaar-linked number, and there is no override or alternate verification route. The fix is to update your mobile number with UIDAI at an Aadhaar enrolment or update centre first, then return to DigiLocker.
• Name or date-of-birth mismatch between Aadhaar and the issuer's database. An issuer such as a transport department or education board will not release a record if the name it holds does not match the identity DigiLocker presents from Aadhaar, even if the mismatch is a single initial or a transliteration difference. This has to be corrected at the source, the board, RTO, or UIDAI record, not inside DigiLocker.
• Wrong or incomplete document identifier. Fetching a specific issued document depends entirely on the identifier you supply, a driving licence number, vehicle registration number, PAN, or roll number and year of passing. An identifier that is off by even one character returns no result, and DigiLocker does not suggest corrections.
• Issuer not yet onboarded. If your state board, university, or state revenue department has not integrated with DigiLocker, no identifier will work because there is no record to fetch. This is not something retrying will fix; check the issuer list under the relevant category to confirm onboarding before assuming a wrong identifier.
• A verifier declines a shared document. Occasionally an office or individual unfamiliar with DigiLocker treats a shared link or downloaded PDF as insufficient. The fix is to point to Rule 9A of the Information Technology (Preservation and Retention of Information by Intermediaries providing Digital Locker Facilities) Rules, 2016, under which an issued, digitally signed DigiLocker document is legally at par with the physical original, and to show the visible digital signature on the document itself.
• Confusing an uploaded file for an issued document. A rejection is expected and correct here. Anything you scanned and put in your Drive yourself is unverified and carries no legal equivalence; if an office needs the authoritative version, it has to be fetched under Issued Documents from the actual issuer, not produced from your own upload.