Can lenses be transferred?

[Kage_Senshi-o]

I have a madurai lens in my Broken War which I installed at a time when I had no idea what the whole thing was about. Now that I understand it a little bit, I want to move that lens to a frame so I can earn Focus without having to use that weapon, since I've obtained better ones more recently.

[Slayer-.]

You cannot move them. only replace them with another.

[MasterJ93]

Unfortunately, Focus Lenses can not be transferred to another item. When changing a Focus Lens, it “breaks.” So basically, it’s stuck on that weapon indefinitely.

[Urlan]

It would be a logical move; what with how Arcanes went from permanently installed into cosmetic gear to being removable to now slotted like mods into the warframe's mod screen; but so far there has been resistance to making that leap.

[(PSN)camwyn-xenos]

Unfortunately there a permanent install, we can only overwrite them, and unlike forma we cannot overwrite with a blank/neutral lens something you may find annoying after you finish focus farming.  As for being slotable that would reduce the grind so devs probably will never make that a quality of life thing.

[GrayArchon]

When Focus 2.0 was released with the Plains of Eidolon (Update 22), all lenses were uninstalled and refunded to the player's inventory. This is because they introduced Eidolon Lenses and wanted to give you a chance to install those without losing the Greater Lenses (which you need to make Eidolon Lenses). This is the only time that they have done this (despite releasing Lua Lenses in Update 25.7 in an analogous situation). I wish they allowed us to uninstall or replace lenses without breaking them, but currently that's not a feature in the game. Right now, if you install a lens, it's permanent. You can't uninstall it. If you replace it, you lose the first lens. And if you get rid of the gear item (like using the Broken War to forge the War), you will also lose the lens (as well as any Orokin Catalysts or Forma or such that you've invested).

I hope DE changes this.

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

On 2020-11-18 at 4:14 AM, Kage_Senshi-o said:

I have a madurai lens in my Broken War which I installed at a time when I had no idea what the whole thing was about. Now that I understand it a little bit, I want to move that lens to a frame so I can earn Focus without having to use that weapon, since I've obtained better ones more recently.

You don't say what type of lens you have so I'm going to assume it's the lowest type.  Those things are basically disposable... if you want 100 more just pick your preferred open world bounty and go farm them.

The higher level lens (greater, eidolon and lua) should only be installed with thought about HOW you are going to farm focus.  Passive focus gained from just playing the game is very minimal so when you get serious about focus (ie using better lenses) then you MUST farm.  Doesn't matter if that farm is ESO or a stealth exterminate or something else.  For these types of farming scenarios your loadout is very specific in frame and weapons so you need only a small number of the good lenses on those items. 

Putting a better lens on a frame "just because you like it and play it a lot" is a huge waste unless that frame also fits into one of the farming metas.