Screenshot Text
Screenshot to textScreenshot Text

Extract text from a screenshot

Turn any screenshot into editable text without breaking your flow. No website to upload to, no file to convert, no extra windows. Press one shortcut and the text is on your clipboard, ready to paste like magic. It all runs on your Mac.

Download freeBuy lifetime for $49

Requires macOS 13+ on an Apple Silicon Mac · no account needed

Screenshot to text in three steps

No new windows, no uploads, no file conversions. As easy as copy and paste.

Press ⌘⇧7

Launch Screenshot Text from any app, even over a video or a locked PDF.

Drag over the text

Draw a box around the words in your screenshot or image.

Paste anywhere

Clean, editable text is on your clipboard, ready to paste.

See it in action

Grab a paragraph from a locked PDF and drop it straight into your notes.

Step 1

Screenshot text from a locked PDF

The PDF won't let you select the text? Press ⌘⇧7 and grab it anyway.

The study found that participants
who took short breaks every 90 minutes
reported 23% higher focus and fewer
errors than those who pushed straight through.
PDF
Lockedannual-report.pdf
Step 2

Paste it straight into your notes

Now it's on your clipboard. Press ⌘V to paste into Notes, an email, anywhere.

The study found that participants who took short breaks every 90 minutes reported 23% higher focus and fewer errors than those who pushed straight through.

It keeps the formatting, not just the characters

It works for any text. Where it really shows is code: plain OCR flattens it, and the on-device AI puts the indentation, quotes, and brackets back.

Plain OCR
function useCart() {
const [items, setltems] = useState([])
const add = (p) => setltems([...items, p])
const key = ‘cart’
return { items, add }
}
Indentation lost“I” read as “l”Curly quotes
Fixed by on-device AI
Cleaned
function useCart() {
const [items, setItems] = useState([])
const add = (p) => setItems([...items, p])
const key = "cart"
return { items, add }
}

Runs entirely on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded.

Related guides

Extracting text from screenshots

Everything you need to know.

It keeps the formatting. Turn on the AI cleanup and a local model restores indentation, straightens curly quotes, and rejoins wrapped lines, so code and structured text come out the way they looked on screen, not as one flat blob.

Nothing is uploaded. Recognition runs on-device with Apple's Vision framework and the optional AI cleanup runs a local model on your Mac. There is no server and no account, and it works on a plane.

Anything visible on screen: a screenshot, an image, a frame of a paused video, a PDF you cannot select, or a screen-shared window. OCR works across 14 languages and is auto-detected.

Yes, the free plan is the full app, AI cleanup included, capped at 5 captures a day. A one-time $49 Lifetime makes it unlimited and includes every future update. No subscription.

Live Text is great for plain prose, but it flattens code and structured text. Screenshot Text adds an on-device AI pass tuned for code, so indentation, quotes, and brackets survive the trip.

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Stop retyping what's already on your screen.

Grab any text in one keystroke. Free to try, $49 to own for life, and it all runs on your Mac.

Download freeBuy lifetime

macOS 13+ on Apple Silicon · no account needed