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Microsoft Lens PDF Scanner to Be Retired on Android and iOS
Microsoft is winding down one of its most highly rated mobile utilities: the Lens PDF scanner (formerly Office Lens). The app, known for quickly converting printed and handwritten content into shareable files, will be phased out on Android and iOS later in 2025. This move is part of a broader effort to streamline Microsoft’s mobile offerings and consolidate capabilities into newer products.
Retirement Timeline and What Changes for Users
According to reports, the phase-out begins in mid-September 2025, when new installs from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store will be disabled. By mid-November 2025 the app will be removed from both stores, and as of December 15, 2025 users will no longer be able to create new scans. Existing scans will remain accessible in the MyScans folder after that date, but creation and updates will be disabled.
Product Features and Core Capabilities
What Lens offered
Microsoft Lens has been valued for fast OCR (optical character recognition), automatic edge detection, and multi-format export: users could capture documents and whiteboards and save them as PDF, Word, PowerPoint, or Excel files. It integrated with Office workflows and has been downloaded over 50 million times on Google Play with nearly 1 million reviews averaging 4.8 stars on both Android and iOS.
Notable advantages
Its strengths included reliable text recognition, clean exports for business and academic use, and easy sharing. For many professionals, students, and field workers it served as a lightweight mobile productivity tool for digitizing receipts, lecture notes, contracts, and whiteboard sessions.
Comparisons and Alternatives
Microsoft is pointing users to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which incorporates many Lens capabilities but lacks some of Lens’s popular extras. Other alternatives on Android and iOS include Adobe Scan, Google Drive’s Scan feature, CamScanner, and Evernote Scannable. Users should evaluate OCR accuracy, export formats, and cloud sync options when switching.
Advantages of Migrating to Copilot and Recommended Actions
Moving to Microsoft 365 Copilot can provide tighter integration with Microsoft 365 services and AI-driven features. However, because Copilot may not match every Lens feature, users should:
- Back up important scans to OneDrive or another cloud service before the cutoff dates.
- Export critical documents in preferred formats (PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX) while creation is still available.
- Test Copilot and other scanning apps to confirm OCR fidelity and workflow compatibility.
Market Relevance and Broader Context
Lens’s retirement aligns with Microsoft’s recent app rationalization—following the deprecation of password autofill in Microsoft Authenticator, the announced end of Microsoft Publisher in 2026, and the removal of Paint 3D from the Microsoft Store. For businesses and mobile productivity users, the change underscores a trend toward consolidation of features into centralized, AI-enhanced apps and cloud-first workflows.
Final Takeaway
If you rely on Microsoft Lens, prepare now: export and back up your scans, explore Microsoft 365 Copilot, and evaluate third-party scanning apps to ensure uninterrupted document capture and OCR-based workflows.
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