OneDrive Now Has a Document Scanner – Replacing Microsoft Lens
Microsoft has integrated a document scanning feature directly into OneDrive, effectively replacing the standalone Microsoft Lens app.While this offers a convenient scanning solution within the OneDrive ecosystem, it differs from Lens in a key aspect: scanned documents are saved directly to OneDrive cloud storage, rather than your device’s local storage.
This means you’ll manually need to download scanned documents from OneDrive. Conversely, Lens allowed you to save scans to your preferred local storage.
How to Use the OneDrive Document Scanner
Using the new scanning feature in OneDrive is straightforward. On your mobile device, open OneDrive and tap the plus icon, then select “Scan.”
This will open your camera, allowing you to scan the document. Once scanned, Microsoft automatically enhances the image, applying Lens-like editing to create a clear, readable document. You can then edit or save it directly to OneDrive.
While you can’t directly save OneDrive scans to local storage, you can always download them manually from their cloud location.
For those who also have it installed, Microsoft 365 Copilot also offers scanning capabilities and can serve as an alternative.
Many users will miss the simplicity of Microsoft Lens, which was a dedicated and streamlined app for scanning.