Microsoft is killing "Microsoft Lens" after 11 years

Microsoft is preparing to sunset another long-running product alongside the end of life for Windows 10 this year. The company has confirmed that Microsoft Lens, its popular mobile document-scanning app, will be phased out by the end of 2025.

To catch you up, Microsoft first launched the app in 2014 as Office Lens for Windows Phone. It quickly became a go-to tool for converting documents, whiteboards, and notes into digital files.

Seeing the successes, the company expanded to iOS and Android. It was in 2021 when the company renamed it as Microsoft Lens.

Well, the app will retire soon. Microsoft says that it will phase out the app in stages starting September 15, 2025. By mid-October, new downloads will be blocked from the App Store and Google Play. In mid-November, the app will disappear from both stores entirely.

On December 15, the app will be killed. Users will lose the ability to create new scans. Existing files will remain accessible in the MyScans folder, but without updates or support.

The company has also urged users to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which now includes an upgraded Scan feature. Microsoft says this tool supports scanning text into Word, tables into Excel, and more, with all files saved to OneDrive under “MyCreations.”

If you’ve relied on Microsoft Lends for a long time, it’s time to bid goodbye to the familiar tool. With the company heavily investing in AI, we saw that coming. Speaking of AI, Microsoft yesterday announced that it has integrated the newly announced GPT-5 model into its products.