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Microsoft will soon discontinue its excellent PDF Scanner app

Bad news if you rely on Microsoft’s Lens: PDF Scanner app for your PDF scanning needs. The company has announced that the app will be discontinued in the coming months, and is recommending users switch to its Copilot app instead.

The app will stop working mid-December

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it will be “retiring the Microsoft Lens mobile app for iOS and Android in a phased approach starting September 15, 2025”.

According to the company, it will disable new installs of the app in mid-October, and will remove the app from the App Store and google’s Play store in mid-November.

Then, in December, “users will no longer be able to create new scans” in the app, effectively rendering it useless, except for accessing the app’s MyScans folders,

As a replacement, Microsoft recommends users turn to its 365 Copilot app, “which offers similar functionality.” It also says that “scans saved to OneDrive will be accessible via the MyCreations section in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app”.

As noted by BleepingComputer, the Microsoft 365 Copilot app doesn’t currently offer a perfect replacement for Microsoft Lens: PDF Scanner, as it still lacks a few key features:

“The company advised Microsoft Lens users to switch to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which supports most of its features but does not allow them to save scans directly to OneNote, Word, or PowerPoint, or scan business cards to save them to OneNote.

Additionally, the Microsoft 365 Copilot app doesn’t provide read-out-loud functionality or Immersive Reader integration. However, the company pledged to continue adding new features and improving its current capabilities.”

Did you use the Microsoft Lens: PDF Scanner? Do you have a good alternative? Let us know in the comments.

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Avatar for Marcus Mendes Marcus Mendes

Marcus Mendes is a Brazilian tech podcaster and journalist who has been closely following Apple since the mid-2000s.

He began covering Apple news in Brazilian media in 2012 and later broadened his focus to the wider tech industry, hosting a daily podcast for seven years.