RIP, Microsoft Lens, a simple little app that’s getting replaced by AI

Typically it’s good to have a easy app that does one factor properly with out a variety of fuss.

Microsoft Lens was that sort of app: a cellular doc scanner that turned paper paperwork, enterprise playing cards, receipts, and the rest into simply readable digital information. Now that app is being discontinued, Microsoft says, because it directs its customers to its Copilot AI chat app as a substitute.

In response to a brand new assist document, Lens shall be retired from iOS and Android units beginning on September 15, 2025, then faraway from the Apple App Retailer and Google Play on November 15, 2025. Present customers will be capable of proceed to make use of the app’s scanning capabilities by way of December 15, 2025. After that date, no new scans shall be attainable, however entry to prior scans will stay within the app so long as it stays on the person’s system.

First launched in 2015, Microsoft Lens (then often known as Workplace Lens) developed from an utility initially designed for Home windows Telephone units. Whereas its core performance was just like different cellular scanning purposes, it didn’t attempt to upcharge customers for sure performance or push them right into a subscription — a rarity in at this time’s App Retailer.

As an alternative, it carried out its job of turning any observe — handwritten or in any other case — doc, receipt, enterprise card, and even whiteboard scribbles into the file format of your selection, like PDF, Phrase, PowerPoint, Excel, or photographs. It additionally provided quite a lot of built-in filters to boost the ensuing picture, lighten the doc, flip it right into a sharper black-and-white copy, and extra.

You can then save the file to one in all Microsoft’s apps, different on-line companies, or your digicam roll. It was easy, and it labored properly.

The app’s impending shutdown was first noticed by the location Bleeping Computer, which factors out that customers are being directed to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which lacks all of the performance present in Lens. Whereas Copilot can deal with scanning, it doesn’t assist saving these scans on to OneNote, Phrase, or PowerPoint, nor does it save enterprise card scans to OneNote. It additionally lacks Lens’ accessibility options like read-out-loud and Immersive Reader integration, the location notes.

Regardless of its age, Lens stays pretty well-liked, having pulled in over 322,000 downloads on the App Store and Google Play over the previous 30 days, in line with knowledge from app intelligence supplier Appfigures. Since January 2017, it has been downloaded 92.3 million occasions, the agency’s knowledge reveals.

Microsoft has not but responded to a request for touch upon its determination to close down Lens.