Screen OCR for Mac: Copy Text You Cannot Select
By Eduard Bruch, developer of Optic · Updated
Screen OCR reads text straight from what is on your Mac screen, so you can copy words that are baked into images, videos, canvases or app labels. You draw a box around the text and the recognized characters go to the clipboard, with no file to save or import.
Short answer: for images, try Live Text first. For everything else on screen, my pick is Optic, a menu bar app that copies the text in any area you drag across the screen ($4.99, a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store).
Disclosure: I build Optic.
The gap between seeing and selecting
macOS lets you select text in documents, native apps and most web pages. But a lot of what you see is not selectable text:
- Labels in apps and dialogs
- Text drawn as graphics in web apps and dashboards
- Code and commands shown in a paused tutorial
- Slides in a video call or a remote desktop window
- Scanned pages and image-only PDFs
Classic OCR software expects a file: you save an image, import it, process it, then copy the result. That does not fit text that only exists on screen for a moment.
What macOS gives you
Live Text works where Apple supports it: images in Preview, Photos, Quick Look and Safari, and paused video frames in some players. It does not work on arbitrary app windows, video calls or UI text.
Screenshot plus Preview covers the rest, slowly: press Shift-Command-4, drag over the area, open the screenshot in Preview and try Live Text on it. You end up with a file on your desktop for every capture.
How screen OCR works with Optic
Optic sits in the menu bar and reads only the area you mark.
- Click the Optic icon in the menu bar.
- Choose Capture Text.
- Drag a box over the text.
- Paste with Command-V.
The text is recognized on your Mac with Apple's Vision framework at its accurate setting, then copied to the clipboard with a small confirmation and an optional sound. Press Esc to cancel a capture. If you use more than one display, the selection overlay appears on each of them.
A few settings make the result cleaner:
- Line breaks: keep them, remove them, or smart merge wrapped lines into sentences.
- Code mode: keeps each line's indentation and turns off language correction, which helps with code from tutorials or screenshots.
- Languages: 21 recognition languages, each one switchable in Settings.
If the area you capture contains a QR code, Optic can copy the code's content instead of the text. That option is on by default. There is also a dedicated Capture QR Code mode; see how to scan a QR code on Mac.
History and read aloud
The last 20 captures are kept in the menu bar popover with a thumbnail and time. You can copy one again, open a link from it, delete it, or have it read aloud with the macOS speech voices. History stays on your Mac and is never uploaded.
Privacy
Screen OCR needs the macOS Screen Recording permission, which can sound alarming. Optic is sandboxed, has no network access, no account, no analytics and no ads, and it reads screen pixels only inside the box you draw.
Where Optic does not fit
- It does not open files. Images and PDFs need to be open on screen first.
- One area at a time. No folder processing, no whole-document OCR, no searchable PDFs.
- No table extraction and no translation.
- No 1D barcodes. It reads QR and other 2D codes, not EAN or UPC product barcodes.
- Mac only. There is no iPhone, iPad or Windows version.
Other screen OCR apps exist too, such as TextSniper, TRex, Shottr and CleanShot X. For an overview, see screen OCR apps for Mac compared and Optic vs TextSniper. How the menu bar workflow looks day to day: text recognition from the Mac menu bar.
FAQ
Does Mac have built-in screen OCR?
Partly. Live Text recognizes text in images in Preview, Photos, Quick Look and Safari, but it does not read arbitrary app windows, dialogs or video calls.
Is screen OCR on Mac private?
It depends on the app. Optic runs recognition on your Mac, has no network access and keeps its capture history locally.
Why does a screen OCR app need Screen Recording permission?
macOS requires that permission for any app that reads pixels from the screen. Optic reads only the area you select.
Which macOS version does Optic need?
Optic needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later.