Sometimes it is good to have a simple app that does one thing well without too much disturbance.
Microsoft Lens was that type of app: a mobile document scanner that changed something else in paper documents, business cards, receipts and easily readable digital files. Now that app is being closed, Microsoft says, as it directs its users instead of its Copilot AI Chat app.
According to a new support documentThe lens will be retired from iOS and Android devices starting from September 15, 2025, then removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play on 15 November 2025. Current users will be able to continue using the scanning capabilities of the app through December 15, 2025. After that date, no new scan will be possible, as long as it will be used, until it will already work.
The first launched in 2015, Microsoft Lens (then known as office lens) developed from an application designed for Windows phone devices. While its main functionality was similar to other mobile scanning applications, it did not attempt to unveil users for some functionality or pushed them into a subscription – a rareness in today’s app store.
Instead, it performed its own task of turning any note – handwritten or otherwise – documents, receipts, business cards, or even whiteboard scribals in the file format of their choice, such as PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or images. It offered a variety of underlying filters to enhance the resulting image, lighten the document, convert it into a sharp black-and-white copy, and more.
You can then save the file in Microsoft’s app, other online services or one of your camera rolls. It was simple, and it worked well.
The adjacent shutdown of the app was first seen by the site Blapping computerWhich suggests that users are being directed in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which lacks all the functionality found in the lens. Whereas Co -pilot Can handle scanning, it does not support those scans directly to save oneonote, word, or powerpoint, nor does it protect ONENOOTE Business Card Scan. There is also a lack of accessibility features of lenses such as read-out-rose and Immersive reader Integration, site note.
Techcrunch event
San francisco
,
27-29 October, 2025
Despite its age, the lens is quite popular, it has been pulled in over 322,000 downloads app Store And Google play In the last 30 days, the app intelligence provider according to the data of the APFIGURES. Since January 2017, it has been downloaded 92.3 million times, showing the data of the firm.
Microsoft has not yet responded to a request of comment on its decision to shut down the lens.
