Microsoft has begun retiring its Microsoft Lens PDF scanner app for Android and iOS, starting Friday, January 9.
The company plans to fully remove the app from app stores next month as part of a broader effort to simplify its mobile tools.
Microsoft Lens, previously known as Office Lens, enables users to scan printed and handwritten text, converting images into documents such as PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files. Over the years, it has become very popular, reaching more than 50 million downloads on the Google Play Store. On Android, the app holds over 952,000 reviews with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5, while Apple’s App Store shows nearly 142,000 user ratings.
Microsoft first announced plans to retire the app in August 2025. At the time, the company said the process would begin in mid September, with new installations blocked one month later. On Friday, Microsoft updated its notice in the Microsoft 365 Message Center and shared a revised timeline along with guidance for users.
According to Microsoft, the Lens app will be removed from both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store on February 9, 2026. Scanning features inside the app will stop working on March 9, 2026. Microsoft is encouraging users to move to the document scanning feature built into the OneDrive app instead. The company noted that no administrative action is required and that users should simply be informed of the change.
Microsoft also said users who already have the Lens app installed will still be able to view their existing scans under the MyScans section, as long as the app remains on their device. However, this access will no longer be officially supported. To view past scans, users must be signed in to the same Microsoft account they last used with the app.
For those switching to OneDrive, scanning can be done by tapping the plus button in the app interface and selecting the scan photo option. One key difference is that scans made through OneDrive must be saved to cloud storage, as local saving is not supported.
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The retirement of Microsoft Lens is part of a larger trend of Microsoft discontinuing older apps and features. In May 2025, the company informed Microsoft Authenticator users that its password autofill feature would be phased out in July, giving users until August 1 to export their saved passwords. Earlier in the year, Microsoft also announced that Microsoft Publisher would no longer be supported and would be removed from Microsoft 365 after October 2026.
