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Early last month, Microsoft announced that it was going to retire its free and popular document scanner, Microsoft Lens, very soon. Less than a month later, the company has announced that it is going to do the same for another one of its apps. The tech giant has declared that it is going to be retiring the Microsoft Editor browser extensions for Chrome and Edge at the end of next month on October 31, 2025.
As a refresher, Microsoft launched these add-ons back in April of 2020 as a writing assistant tool and is essentially an alternative to similar utilities like Grammarly. Like Lens, the Microsoft Editor add-on is free and highly rated too. However it is meeting the same fate as Lens as Microsoft thinks there is no need for this anymore. That is because Edge has them. Yes Microsoft wants you to use Edge since it reasons that "the core capabilities of Microsoft Editor are now part of the standard Edge experience."
It writes:
"The core capabilities of Microsoft Editor—such as grammar checks and spelling corrections—are now part of the standard Edge experience. This transition will offer:
- Smarter, enhanced suggestions for grammar, spelling, and writing style.
- Seamless built-in proofing experience directly in Edge without requiring additional extensions.
Users who rely on the Microsoft Editor extensions will transition to the built-in capabilities in Microsoft Edge. Users can continue using the extensions until the retirement date and will automatically benefit from the integrated writing assistance in Edge thereafter."
| Category | Impact |
|---|---|
| Does the change introduce or significantly modify AI/ML or agent capabilities that interact with or provide access to customer data? | AI-powered writing assistance is now integrated into Microsoft Edge, replacing the standalone Editor extensions. |
| Does the change modify, interrupt, or disable any of the following capabilities (Purview)? | The retirement of the extension may affect how writing assistance is logged or monitored if previously tracked separately. |
| Does the change allow a user to enable and disable the feature themselves? | Users can enable or disable the built-in writing assistance in Edge via browser settings. |
Microsoft notes that this change does not require any action from IT admins and system administrators, although it has "recommended informing users of the upcoming retirement and encouraging them to explore the built-in writing assistance in Microsoft Edge." You can check the extensions out here until they are available.
Those who have access to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal can view the message under ID MC1144651.
Hope you enjoyed this news post. Feedback welcome.
Posted Tuesday 2 September 2025 at 5:27 pm AEST (my time).
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- Tzcon
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