Turn a screenshot into text on your Mac
You do not need an OCR app for one screenshot. Open it in Preview or press Space for Quick Look, then select the text in the image and copy it — macOS reads text inside images with Live Text. For many screenshots at once, or to search text you captured months ago, you need something that reads every capture automatically.
Way 1: Live Text, built into macOS
Free, already installed, and the right answer for a single image.
- 1Open the screenshot
Double-click it to open in Preview, or select it in the Finder and press Space for Quick Look.
- 2Select the text inside the picture
Drag across the words as if it were a document. macOS recognises text in images, so the selection highlights real characters.
- 3Copy it
Press ⌘ Cmd C and paste anywhere. Right-clicking the selection also offers Look Up and Translate.
Where the built-in approach stops
Live Text is per-image and on demand. It works beautifully when you know which screenshot you want and you want its text right now.
It does not help with the two harder jobs: pulling text out of fifty captures without opening fifty windows, and finding the screenshot that contains a phrase when you cannot remember which file it was.
Way 2: batch it with the Shortcuts app
For a folder of images, macOS can do the repetitive part for you.
- 1Create a Quick Action
Open the Shortcuts app, make a new shortcut, and set it to receive images from the Quick Actions service so it appears in the Finder’s right-click menu.
- 2Add “Extract Text from Image”
Pass the input images into that action, then send its result to “Copy to Clipboard” or “Save File” depending on whether you want the text pasted or written out.
- 3Run it from the Finder
Select any number of screenshots, right-click, and choose your shortcut under Quick Actions. It is fiddly to set up once and then genuinely useful.
Bunny ScreenshotWay 3: let every capture read itself
Bunny Screenshot reads each screenshot as it arrives, so the text inside it is available without you doing anything — no opening files, no right-click, no shortcut to run.
That turns OCR from a task into a property of your library: every capture is already text, so every capture is already searchable. Copy the text out as plain text or as clean Markdown when you need it.
Captures are read on your Mac. It is local by default; the only network calls are the ones you choose.
- ✓Every screenshot OCR’d automatically as it lands
- ✓Search by the words inside your captures, not the filename
- ✓Copy text out as plain text or clean Markdown
- ✓Results in Spotlight, and an MCP server so your AI tools can search them too
- ✓Free to use; no account, and macOS 26 or later on Apple silicon
Which one should you use?
Live Text in Preview or Quick Look
A Shortcuts Quick Action
An organizer that OCRs and indexes every capture
An organizer that OCRs and indexes every capture
| If you want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Grab the text from one screenshot right now | Live Text in Preview or Quick Look |
| Pull text out of a folder of images | A Shortcuts Quick Action |
| Find which screenshot contains a phrase | An organizer that OCRs and indexes every capture |
| Keep the text of everything you ever capture | An organizer that OCRs and indexes every capture |
Questions people ask
Can macOS extract text from a screenshot without an app?
Yes. Live Text is part of macOS: open the image in Preview or Quick Look, select the words inside it, and copy. No download and no third-party app required.
How do I copy text from an image on a Mac?
Open the image, drag across the text as you would in a document, and press ⌘ Cmd C. If the selection will not catch, the image may be too low-resolution or too skewed for recognition to work.
Is there a way to OCR many screenshots at once?
Two ways. Build a Quick Action in the Shortcuts app around “Extract Text from Image” and run it on a Finder selection, or use an organizer that reads every capture automatically as it arrives.
Does screenshot OCR work offline?
Apple’s Live Text recognition runs on your device. Third-party tools vary — some send images to a server, some do not. Bunny Screenshot reads captures on your Mac: local by default, with the only network calls being the ones you choose.