Microsoft OneDrive document scanning
Phone scanning to PDF in OneDrive, Microsoft's official Lens replacement.
Operated by Microsoft Corporation
Opens the vendor's own site.
Jobs covered
Open a task to see exactly what the vendor documentation supports.
Convert
Browse all convert toolsphone photos captured and saved as a PDF; not a general file converter
Merge
Browse all merge toolscombining multiple page/image captures into a single PDF during the OneDrive mobile scanning flow: on Android, multi-page scanning is available in OneDrive 6.5+ with a maximum of 10 pages/images; on iOS, it is available in 11.31.5+ with a maximum of 30. The scope records only same-flow capture combination into one scan PDF; it does not claim merging arbitrary existing PDFs, inserting captured pages into an existing PDF, reordering existing PDFs or general PDF merge behavior
Edit
Browse all edit toolsediting a scan capture in the OneDrive mobile scanning flow before it is saved: crop, rotate and change the selected filter (Whiteboard, Document, Business Card or Photo; iOS also exposes lighting/grayscale modes), plus iOS-only add-text and highlight on the captured image. The scope records only pre-save scan-image adjustments/markup; it does not claim editing an existing PDF's body text, images or layout, redaction, OCR, text extraction, signing, accessibility or general PDF editing
OCR
Browse all ocr toolsrecognising text while viewing on Android and iOS, rolling out; export behaviour untested
Where your files are processed
Reported to upload your files
The vendor states that files are uploaded to their servers. We have not independently tested this.
The capture/crop/rotate/filter step happens in the mobile app, but Microsoft's help pages say scans are automatically saved as PDFs to OneDrive and that OneDrive does not support saving scans locally on the device. Treat the overall feature as cloud-backed: account required, output stored in OneDrive; OCR/text recognition is a separate rolling-out service feature, and no all-local or offline guarantee is made.
What it does
The OneDrive mobile apps include a scanning feature, which Microsoft names as the recommended replacement for the retired Microsoft Lens app. You tap Scan, choose a mode for whiteboards, documents, business cards or photos, capture with flash control, then crop, rotate and apply filters - and on iOS add text or highlight part of the scan.
Multiple captures combine into one PDF during the same scan flow, saved into OneDrive rather than to the phone: Android supports up to 10 pages/images and iOS up to 30 in a multi-page scan. Files are automatically saved as PDFs in OneDrive, so an account and cloud storage are part of the workflow.
It is a scan-to-OneDrive feature, not a general PDF merger or editor; PDF text recognition/search is a separate rolling-out OneDrive capability and export/searchability was not tested here.
Best for
Phone users who need paper, whiteboards or receipts turned into PDFs that land in OneDrive automatically, without a third-party scanner app.
Worth knowing
Microsoft states OneDrive does not support saving scans locally on your device, an account is required, and multi-page limits differ by platform - ten pages on Android, thirty on iOS. The 'merge' is multiple captures combined into one PDF during the scanning flow, not merging arbitrary existing PDFs, and the 'edit' is crop/rotate/filter plus iOS-only add-text/highlight on the captured image, not editing an existing PDF's body text, images or layout.
It does not redact content, sign PDFs, validate accessibility or provide general OCR/text extraction; Microsoft has a separate guide for recognising/searching/copying text in scanned PDFs in OneDrive on Android and iOS, marked as rolling out, but that does not establish whether recognition is embedded in the saved file or whether an exported PDF carries a searchable layer. No export was tested.
The product is not Microsoft Lens, SharePoint or another Microsoft scanner app; it is the OneDrive mobile scanning feature.
Details, and where each comes from
Vendor statements, our own reading of their pages, and the things nobody has established yet, each answered separately. Where we have not confirmed something it says so rather than guessing, and a row nobody has established is greyed out.
- Versions covered
- iOS · Android
- Website
- support.microsoft.com
- Requires an account
- Yes
- Watermark on the free tier
- Not verified
- Maximum file size
- Not verified
- Batch processing
- No
- Data residency
- Multiple regions
- Open source
- Not verified
- Self-hostable
- No
- Licence
-
Proprietary Microsoft service/app.
Proprietary Microsoft service/app. OneDrive document scanning is free to use with a Microsoft account, subject to OneDrive storage quotas and any Microsoft 365 subscription storage limits.
No separate scanner price, source licence or self-hosted edition is offered; paid OneDrive storage plans are storage, not a scanner licence.
- Redaction
- No redaction feature
- Programmatic access
- None
- Last availability check
- Responded in 29 ms 21 October 2026
Checked automatically by our own runner, not reported by the vendor. 100% of our last 30 checks got a response.
What the redaction verdict rests on
From the vendor's own documentation, read 22 September 2026. Not tested by us.
What that does not establish
The WEAKEST SOURCE IN THIS CAMPAIGN, and the caveat is the reason to say so. Microsoft’s support pages render from JavaScript and the Internet Archive has no snapshot of the scanning help article, so the page read is Microsoft’s OneDrive product page - which is about OneDrive as a whole rather than about the document-scanning feature this record covers.
It does not mention redaction, and that is a weaker statement than the same finding on a page about the feature. The vendor’s own published material was read on 22 September 2026 and contains no mention of redaction, sanitisation, blackout or whiteout.
Absence from a vendor’s own material is not proof that a feature does not exist - it may be undocumented, or on a page the reading did not reach - but for a NEGATIVE claim it is the strongest evidence available, and it is weaker than a positive quote. Recorded as such rather than presented as certainty.
What the vendor says
Claims are labelled rather than repeated as fact. Where we have checked something ourselves, it says so and shows when. Checked means we read the vendor's own page and it says what we recorded - not that we tested the behaviour, unless the note says we did.
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“To continue using scanning capabilities, we recommend the OneDrive app, which includes a built-in scanning feature.”
Checked by us - the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim: the sentence appears unaltered in the retirement notice. It is Microsoft's own migration advice rather than a capability claim, and it is the third claim read from this one page - the notice carries the retirement dates, says scanning continues until March 9 2026, and recommends OneDrive as the replacement.
Read together, the three entries tell a reader everything they need about a feature being retired and where its users are being sent, which is more than any one of them says alone.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- c2c1a45ccec3689a343a56498859d442e11f4caf7c311543701f39e86f34f4c4
How we checked
Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lens/retirement-of-microsoft-lens re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-support-microsoft-com-en-us-lens-retirement-of-microsoft-l-13d3cefe.txt.
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“The Microsoft Lens app will be retired from iOS and Android devices starting January 9, 2026, and will no longer be supported after February 9.”
Checked by us - the source says this Read 22 September 2026
Confirmed verbatim: the retirement notice carries the sentence exactly. This entry matters more than the Lens one, because it is a claim about OneDrive's document scanning rather than about the app being retired: Microsoft's scanning feature in OneDrive reads its capture from Lens, so the retirement dates govern a capability inside a product that is not itself being retired.
The page's third date is the practical one - scanning continues until March 9, 2026. A reader who relies on scanning into OneDrive should plan around that date rather than the February 9 date in the claim, and this record is the reason they would know.
Standing: Re-read and matched byte for byte
Check it yourself: the source, the SHA-256, and how we checked
- From
- the text a browser renders
- SHA-256
- c2c1a45ccec3689a343a56498859d442e11f4caf7c311543701f39e86f34f4c4
How we checked
Re-verified verbatim on 2026-09-22: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lens/retirement-of-microsoft-lens re-rendered in headless Chrome with scripts/render-page.mjs and the claim's wording found in the rendered text. Originally verified on 2026-09-21. sourceHash is the SHA-256 of the re-rendered text, held as rv-support-microsoft-com-en-us-lens-retirement-of-microsoft-l-13d3cefe.txt.
Each claim is quoted from the vendor's own pages. This section describes what we have and have not checked - it is not a judgement about anyone.
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