How to extract text from a screenshot on Mac

What macOS gives you: Live Text

OCR, optical character recognition, is what turns the pixels of a screenshot back into characters a computer can copy, search, and translate. Every tool on this page uses OCR; what separates them is when it runs and what happens to the text afterwards. Live Text and the one-off tools read an image when you ask and hand the words to the clipboard. Snapline reads every capture as it lands and keeps the text in an index, which is what makes a folder of old screenshots searchable. That difference decides which one you want.

Copy text from a screenshot with Live Text

For a screenshot that's already saved, the whole job is open, drag, Control-click, paste. Apple's own Preview guide puts it in one line: "Drag to select text, Control-click your selection, then choose Copy Text."

• Take the screenshot: ⇧⌘4 and drag over the part with the text, or ⇧⌘3 for the whole screen. macOS saves a PNG to the desktop by default.
• Open it. Click the file once in Finder and press Space for Quick Look, or double-click it to open Preview. The floating thumbnail that slides in after a screenshot is not a place where text is selectable; the saved file is.
• Hold the pointer over the words. When it changes from an arrow to a text cursor, drag across the text you want. Double-click selects a word, and you can extend the selection line by line the way you would in a document.
• Control-click the selection and choose Copy Text. Paste it anywhere with ⌘V.

The same context menu carries the other Live Text actions: Look Up for a definition, Translate and then a language, and Search with your default web search engine. A phone number or email address in a screenshot gets its own actions, and a web address can be opened. Apple's guide notes the two caveats plainly: Live Text "isn't available in all regions or languages," and translation "isn't available in all languages and may not be available in some countries or regions." Which languages Live Text reads depends on the macOS version, so check Apple's feature-availability list rather than assuming.

For an image on a web page, you don't need a screenshot at all: in Safari, move the pointer over the image, drag across the words, and Control-click for Copy Text. If the page grabs the drag for something else (an image slider, a map), take a screenshot of the image with ⇧⌘4 and use Preview. For a photo, a scanned page, a slide in a PDF you exported as an image, or a picture someone sent you, the steps are identical: recognition depends on text clarity, language support, and whether Live Text is enabled.

Where Live Text stops

Live Text is a reading tool, not a filing system, and its limits all follow from that:

• One image, opened first, every time. Each extraction is find the file, open it, select, copy. That's fine once and tedious the tenth time in an afternoon.
• No screenshot library in the Copy Text command. It copies the selected words; it does not organize captures into a dedicated history. Photos, Spotlight, or a clipboard manager may provide separate search or history features.
• No batch. There is no way to point it at a folder of forty screenshots and get forty text files.
• App support matters. Live Text also recognizes paused video frames on supported macOS versions. If a particular player or app does not expose selectable text, take a screenshot and open it in Preview.
• Small or blurry text often isn't recognized. Capture at the size you see it rather than shrinking the window first, and prefer a region capture of the text over a whole-screen shot you then squint at.

One-off OCR tools: TextSniper, and the OCR modes in CleanShot X and Shottr

The next step up removes the open-the-file step. All three of these do the same thing at heart: press a shortcut, drag a rectangle over anything on screen, and the recognized text lands on the clipboard. Because they read the screen rather than a saved image, they work on a paused YouTube frame, a PDF that won't let you select, a presentation in a video call, or a dialog box, with no screenshot file created.

TextSniper

TextSniper is the single-purpose one, and it describes itself as "Extract text from images and other digital documents in seconds." Press ⇧⌘2, select an area, and the text is on the clipboard. It reads QR codes and barcodes into text, and it can read the extracted text aloud. Its languages follow the macOS version it runs on: English only on Catalina; Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese added on Big Sur and Monterey; Japanese, Korean, Ukrainian, and Russian added on Ventura. Its own site is candid that it "can have misreads when there are a lot of symbols such as you might find in computer code." It is a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store and requires macOS Catalina or newer. What it doesn't do: keep a history, search past captures, or translate. The result goes to the clipboard; retaining it depends on your clipboard-history settings or where you paste it.

CleanShot X's OCR mode

CleanShot X includes text recognition as one of its capture modes: "Simply select an area that contains the text and it will be copied to your clipboard!" It lists 30+ languages, reads QR codes, and states that recognition "is performed completely on-device." It requires macOS 13.0 or newer. You are buying a large screenshot app (one-time purchase, with a separate subscription for its cloud) to get it, which is the right call if you also want the rest of CleanShot X and not otherwise. Like TextSniper, the OCR action copies text to the clipboard; retaining it depends on your history settings and workflow.

Shottr's OCR mode

Shottr is the free option here: "Press a hotkey and select an area, Shottr will parse the text and copy it to the clipboard." Its OCR also reads QR codes, and Chinese is supported once it's set as the primary language in the app's preferences. Shottr runs on macOS 10.15 and up, can be used free for as long as you want, and asks now and then whether you'd like to buy a one-time license. Same model as the other two: one selection, clipboard, no index.

The honest summary of all three: faster than Live Text for repeated use, and useful when an app does not offer selectable text. But if you'll need the words again next week, paste them somewhere now, rather than relying on clipboard retention.

Find the screenshot by its text: Snapline

Snapline approaches screenshot OCR from the other end. Instead of a mode you invoke, every capture is read in the background, on device through Apple's Vision framework, in the languages you chose in Settings. The text is kept in a local index, so extracting it is never the step you have to remember to do:

• Capture as usual with ⌥⌘S (rebindable). The Quick Access card that appears in the corner has a copy text cell, which puts the whole shot's recognized text on the clipboard, and a view text cell, which opens the Text View. No opening a file, no dragging a selection.
• To find any screenshot by a word in it, open History (⌃⌘S for the shelf, or the full gallery) and type the word. Every capture whose text contains it surfaces, whether it was taken today or months ago, and the arrow keys walk through the results without opening an editor.
• The Text View shows the capture beside its recognized text, grouped into copyable blocks, so you can take just the one address, paragraph, or command you need instead of the whole page.
• Translate the blocks on device, with the original always in view. Translation uses the language packs macOS downloads and owns, and needs macOS 15.
• QR codes and barcodes in a capture are listed in the Text View with copyable payloads; a link payload always shows its full URL before anything opens, and History search matches code payloads too.
• An image that isn't a Snapline capture gets the same treatment: open a PNG, JPEG, TIFF, or HEIC with ⌘O, drop it on the menu-bar icon, or paste a copied image with Open from Clipboard (⌃⌘V). It joins History and is read like any capture.

Two things worth knowing before you rely on it. First, whether recognized text is kept is a setting, Index text in screenshots, on by default; turning it off stops the indexer and purges every stored recognition record, and recognition then works on demand without storing anything. Second, capture contents stay on the Mac. OCR works offline; translation requires its macOS language packs to be downloaded first. Snapline is free to try in full for 14 days (after the trial, capture unlocks with a one-time license: no subscription; text recognition, translation, and History stay open even unlicensed) and requires macOS 14 or later. Screen Recording is needed for screen capture; recognizing an imported image needs no extra capture permission.

Every screenshot OCR option side by side

Which should you use

• A paragraph or an address, now and then: Live Text. It's free, it's already there, and it's good. Don't install anything.
• Text from a video frame, a locked PDF, or a dialog, a few times a day: a select-a-rectangle tool. TextSniper if OCR is all you want, Shottr if you'd rather not pay, CleanShot X's mode if you already own CleanShot X.
• Screenshots you'll need to find again: receipts, error messages, chat threads, slides from a call, anything you screenshot because you'll want it later. That's an indexing problem, not a copying problem, and Snapline is built for it: search History by a word, copy the block, translate if you must.
• Code: copy from the source whenever you can. Every OCR engine, Live Text included, stumbles on symbols; see the question below.

Every shortcut on this page

Questions

Does macOS have built-in OCR?

Yes. It's called Live Text, and it has been part of macOS since Monterey, so every Mac on macOS 14 or later has it. Open an image in Preview, Quick Look, or Photos, or view one in Safari, and the words in it become selectable. If text is not selectable, check Live Text in System Settings → General → Language & Region.

How do I copy text from a screenshot on a Mac?

Open the screenshot in Preview (double-click it) or Quick Look (select it in Finder and press Space), hold the pointer over the words until it turns into a text cursor, drag to select, then Control-click the selection and choose Copy Text. Paste with ⌘V. In Snapline, the Quick Access card that appears after every capture has a copy text cell that puts the whole shot's recognized text on the clipboard without opening anything.

Can I extract text from a screenshot for free?

Yes. Live Text is free and already on the Mac, and for an occasional address, error message, or paragraph it is the right tool. Shottr's OCR mode is also usable for free. What the free routes lack is memory: none of them keep an index of what past screenshots say, so a shot from last month has to be found by eye.

Is there a TextSniper alternative that keeps a history?

TextSniper, and the OCR modes in CleanShot X and Shottr, read one selection at a time onto the clipboard and keep nothing. Snapline is the different model: every screenshot is OCR'd in the background on device, so History search finds captures by the words in them, a Text View shows each capture beside its text in copyable blocks, and QR code payloads are searchable too. If you only ever need the text once, TextSniper's select-and-copy is simpler; if you find yourself hunting for a screenshot you took weeks ago, the index is the feature.

Does screenshot OCR work offline, or is my screenshot uploaded somewhere?

Live Text runs on the Mac. CleanShot X states that its text recognition is performed completely on device. Snapline's OCR runs on device through Apple's Vision framework and its translation uses macOS language packs; nothing is uploaded, the app has no account and no telemetry, and recognition and translation keep working with no connection. Whether recognized text is stored is a Snapline setting, Index text in screenshots, and turning it off purges the index.

Can I translate the text in a screenshot on Mac?

Yes, two ways. In Preview, select the text with Live Text, Control-click, and choose Translate, then pick a language; Apple notes that translation isn't available in all languages or regions. In Snapline, the Text View translates a capture's blocks on the Mac using macOS language packs, with the original always in view; it needs macOS 15.

Why does OCR misread code?

Text recognition is tuned for words in a language, so it leans on dictionaries and letter frequencies. Code is full of symbols, underscores, and mixed case that no dictionary predicts, so a pipe becomes an l, a zero becomes an O, and indentation collapses. TextSniper says as much on its own site. For code, copy from the source when you can; when the screenshot is all you have, proofread the paste.

Can I extract text from an image that isn't a screenshot?

Yes. Live Text can recognize supported text in images opened in Preview or Quick Look, so a photo of a whiteboard or a scanned page works the same way as a screenshot. Snapline opens PNG, JPEG, TIFF, and HEIC files through File → Open, a drop on its icon, or Open from Clipboard (⌃⌘V), and an imported image joins History like any capture, so it gets the same background OCR, search, Text View, and translation.