Guide
Does Mac Have OCR? Live Text and Preview Explained (and Their Limits)
Yes: macOS has built-in OCR called Live Text, in Preview, Photos and Safari. How to use it, where it fails (code, Chrome, Zoom) and what to use instead.
Guide3 min read
Live Text Not Working on Mac? 7 Fixes (and a Workaround)
Can't select text in images on your Mac? Seven reasons Live Text stops working (settings, language, app, image quality, video) and how to fix each.
Mike
Published 3 November 2026
Short answer
Work through these in order: (1) make sure Live Text is switched on in System Settings > General > Language & Region; (2) check your Mac's language and region are ones Live Text supports; (3) use an app that supports it (Preview, Photos, Quick Look, Safari); (4) in Preview, turn on Tools > Text Selection; (5) make sure the text is big and sharp enough; (6) for video, use an Apple player on macOS Ventura or later; (7) restart, or update macOS. If the text is somewhere Live Text simply doesn't reach (Chrome, Zoom, a game), use a screen OCR tool instead.
Live Text not working on your Mac? It's supposed to make text in any picture selectable. When it doesn't, there's almost always a specific reason. Here they are, from most to least common.
1. Live Text is switched off
Open System Settings > General > Language & Region and scroll down. Make sure Live Text is selected. It's easy to turn off by accident, and some people disable it deliberately because it changes how dragging works in Preview.
2. Your language or region isn't supported
Live Text only works in certain languages and regions. Apple's macOS Feature Availability page lists them: various English regions, Chinese, Cantonese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and more. If your Mac's primary language isn't on the list, the Live Text option can be missing entirely. Add a supported language under Language & Region (and move it up the list) to test.
3. You're in an app that doesn't support it
Live Text works in Apple's apps: Preview, Photos, Quick Look and Safari (images on web pages). It does not work in:
- Chrome, Firefox or other browsers
- Slack, Discord, Teams or Zoom
- Most third-party image viewers and design tools
Workaround: save the image (or take a screenshot), open it in Preview and select from there.
4. Preview's selection tool is set to Rectangular
In Preview, if dragging draws a box instead of selecting text, choose Tools > Text Selection. Then hover until the pointer becomes an I-beam and drag.
5. The text is too small, blurry or stylised
Live Text needs to recognise the text before it can select it. It struggles with:
- Tiny text in a large image (zoom in first, or crop)
- Heavy compression or blur
- Decorative, handwritten or very stylised fonts
- Low contrast (grey on grey)
If a few words select but others don't, the image quality is the problem.
6. You're trying it on video
Live Text on paused video needs macOS Ventura or later, and only works in some Apple apps. It doesn't work in Chrome's video player, YouTube in Firefox, or most streaming apps. See how to copy text from a YouTube video on Mac for what does work.
7. Restart or update macOS
If it worked yesterday and doesn't today in Preview, restart the Mac. If it's been broken since an update, install the latest point update; text-selection bugs do get fixed in minor releases.
When Live Text can't help: a screen OCR shortcut
Plenty of text lives in places Live Text will never reach: a Zoom share, a remote desktop, a game, a video in Chrome, an app that blocks copying. A screen OCR tool reads any part of the screen instead.
Screenshot Text uses the same on-device Apple recognition engine, but works everywhere. Press ⌘⇧7, drag over the text, and paste. There's no file to save or open. In our tests on ordinary text (like a web article) it was word-perfect. Leave its Optimize for code setting off for normal text, and turn it on only when you're capturing code.
Quick checklist
- Live Text is on in Language & Region
- Your language and region are supported
- You're in Preview, Photos, Quick Look or Safari
- Preview is set to Tools > Text Selection
- The text is reasonably large and sharp
- Video: macOS Ventura or later, in an Apple player
- Restarted and up to date
If you're looking for a replacement rather than a fix, see the best OCR for Mac or how Screenshot Text compares with TextSniper.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
In System Settings > General > Language & Region (you may need to scroll down). On older macOS versions it's under System Preferences > Language & Region > General.
Usually because your Mac's primary language or region isn't supported. Apple lists supported languages on its macOS Feature Availability page. Adding a supported language can make the option appear.
Yes. Apple brought Live Text to Intel Macs during the macOS Monterey beta, so it works on Macs that run Monterey or later.
Yes: uncheck it in Language & Region. Some people do, because it makes dragging over images in Preview select text instead of drawing a selection box.
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