Microsoft Will Close Lens App, Switch Users To Copilot

The view of the Lens application when it was first released (photo: dock. Microsoft)

JAKARTA Microsoft Lens, an application for scanning documents, will be completely ignored by Microsoft. The reason is, this application will be closed from all compatible devices in the near future.

In a recent support report, Microsoft said that Lens will be deactivated on September 15. This closure will apply on all devices, both iOS and Android-based phones.

In line with this termination, Microsoft does not only close access to the Lens app. The technology company will also remove Lens from the App Store and Google Play Store on November 15.

After passing that date, document scanning will not be possible. Although it will be deleted, users can still access the document scan results as long as the application is not removed from the device.

"To continue using scanning capabilities, we recommend you switch to Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which offers built-in scanning features," Microsoft said, quoted on Saturday, August 9.

Microsoft Lens works like a scanning app in general, but with a fairly complete feature. Users can scan documents, name cards, receipts, and others into PDF, Word, or even images formats.

Lens also doesn't charge additional fees to its users. For better results, users can use the built-in filter. Compared to Microsoft 365 Copilot, Lens is much better at scanning documents.

Not all features can be found on Copilot and this application also cannot save the scan results directly to OneNote, Word, or PowerPoint. In addition, Copilot also does not have Lens accessibility features such as read-hard features and Immersive Reader integration.