Microsoft will kill the Lens PDF scanner app for iOS, Android
Microsoft announced that it will phase out the Microsoft Lens PDF scanner app for Android and iOS devices starting in September.
Microsoft Lens (formerly known as Office Lens) can convert images into PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files, and it is capable of scanning both printed and handwritten text. Currently, the app has been downloaded 50 million times on the Google Play Store (with over 952,000 reviews with an average of 4.9/5 rating) and received nearly 136,000 ratings on Apple's App Store.
According to Microsoft's timeline, the retirement process will begin in mid-September, with new Apple App Store and Google Play Store installs to be disabled one month later.
Starting in mid-November, Microsoft Lens will be removed from app stores. Users who still have it installed will no longer be able to create new scans after mid-December 2025.
"This change affects users of the Microsoft Lens mobile app on iOS and Android. After December 15, 2025, users will no longer be able to create new scans in the app," Redmond said in a Thursday message center note.
"Existing scans will remain accessible in the app's MyScans folder, but this functionality will no longer be supported. Users can continue scanning using the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which offers similar functionality. Scans saved to OneDrive will be accessible via the MyCreations section in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app."
The company advised Microsoft Lens users to switch to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which supports most of its features but does not allow them to save scans directly to OneNote, Word, or PowerPoint, or scan business cards to save them to OneNote.
Additionally, the Microsoft 365 Copilot app doesn't provide read-out-loud functionality or Immersive Reader integration. However, the company pledged to continue adding new features and improving its current capabilities.
Microsoft Lens is one of several apps and services that Redmond announced will be killed since the start of the year.
For instance, in May, Microsoft notified Microsoft Authenticator users that the app's password autofill feature would be deprecated in July and advised users to switch to Microsoft Edge instead, after giving them until August 1st to export their passwords before they became unavailable in the app.
Two months earlier, the company published guidance for Microsoft Publisher users, alerting them that the desktop publishing application would no longer be supported and would be removed from Microsoft 365 after October 2026.
One year ago, Microsoft also said that the Windows Paint 3D graphics app would be discontinued and removed from the Microsoft Store in November 2024.
