Microsoft will put an end to certain cloud-based services in Office Lens for Windows on December 31, 2020. After the deadline, certain Office Lens for Windows services such as saving your pictures to OneDrive, OneNote, Word, PowerPoint, or PDF will not be available to users.
Office Lens for Windows comes to an end
All other features of the app will continue to remain available.
“Certain cloud-based services in Office Lens for Windows, such as saving your pictures to OneDrive, OneNote, Word, PowerPoint, or PDF, will become unavailable after December 31, 2020,” Microsoft said.
What’s more, Windows 10 users can no longer download the Office Lens app from the Microsoft Store starting January 1, 2021. If you want to continue using all Office Lens features without any service interruptions, you can download and install the latest version of Office Lens for Android and iOS.
“You can continue to use other features of the app as installed on your device. Besides, Office Lens for Windows 10 will no longer be available for download from the Microsoft Store as of January 1, 2021,” it added.
Office Lens allows users to capture notes and information from anything with a lot of text. For example, you can capture information and notes from whiteboards, menus, signs, or handwritten memos. It can also be used to capture images without text and save them as PDFs.
In addition to PDFs, you can upload captured documents, business cards, and whiteboard images to Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, and send them as emails.
After December 31, 2020, captures stored over the cloud in your Recent Uploads tab will no longer be accessible from the Office Lens for Windows app.
How to retrieve your cloud-saved captures
You can download Lens captures that you need to your local device. However, make sure to keep a backup of these files before the December 31, 2020 deadline.
If you want to access your previous cloud-saved captures, all you need to do is sign in to your OneDrive account and navigate to My Files > Documents > Office Lens folder.
After the deadline, users will no longer be able to save new captures at this location using the Office Lens for Windows app.
