How to Copy Text From the Screen on Mac (Free Screen OCR)

Yes, your Mac has OCR built in: Live Text lets you select and copy text inside images in Preview, Photos, Quick Look and Safari. The catch is that it only works on image files and a few Apple apps, so it cannot read an error dialog, a paused YouTube lecture or a Zoom screen share. For those you want a Mac screen OCR tool that reads any pixels on screen, and Korinotch's Screen OCR does that for free: press a hotkey, draw a box, the text is on your clipboard.

This guide covers the three ways to copy text from the screen on a Mac, from the built-in route to a one-drag OCR app, with the limits of each.

Method 1: Live Text in Preview, Photos and Quick Look

Live Text is Apple's on-device text recognition. Since macOS Monterey it runs on Apple silicon Macs and on Intel Macs from 2017 onwards. To copy text from a screenshot on Mac:

1. Take the screenshot with Cmd+Shift+4 and drag a region, or Cmd+Shift+3 for the whole screen.
2. Open the PNG in Preview, or select it in Finder and press Space for Quick Look.
3. Move the pointer over the text. The cursor changes to an I-beam. Drag to select, then press Cmd+C.

Live Text also works on photos in the Photos app and on images inside Safari pages, and it can detect phone numbers, addresses and links. Make sure System Settings → General → Language & Region → Live Text is on if the I-beam never appears.

Limits that send people searching for a separate Mac screenshot OCR app:

• It needs an image file or a supported app. It cannot read text drawn in a terminal, a Zoom window, a game or a virtual machine.
• Video support is limited to Apple's own player when paused. YouTube in Chrome, VLC and most lecture platforms do not expose Live Text.
• It is a two-step workflow: capture a file, then open it. The screenshot also lands on your Desktop.
• Mixed layouts (code with line numbers, tables, columns) often come out in the wrong order.

Method 2: The Shortcuts "Extract Text from Image" action

The Shortcuts app includes an Extract Text from Image action that uses the same Vision engine as Live Text. You can build a shortcut that takes a screenshot, runs OCR and copies the result:

1. Open Shortcuts and create a new shortcut.
2. Add Take Screenshot, set it to Interactive so you can pick a region.
3. Add Extract Text from Image and feed it the screenshot.
4. Add Copy to Clipboard, then assign a keyboard shortcut in the shortcut's details panel.

This is free and already on your Mac, and it is a decent answer for occasional use. Downsides: Shortcuts takes a second or two to launch, the interactive screenshot tool briefly flashes, and the shortcut sometimes fails silently if an app blocks screen recording. If you do this several times a day the friction adds up.

Method 3: Korinotch Screen OCR (free, one hotkey)

Korinotch Screen OCR is a free menu bar app that does the whole job in one gesture. Press Cmd+Shift+O, draw a box around any text on screen and the recognised text is copied to your clipboard instantly. No file is saved, no app has to open, and nothing is uploaded: recognition runs through Apple's on-device Vision framework, the same engine behind Live Text, so accuracy is excellent for printed and on-screen text in the languages macOS supports.

Because it reads the screen rather than a file, it works where Live Text does not:

• Error dialogs and alerts. Copy the exact message and paste it into a search or a bug report instead of retyping it.
• Video lectures and tutorials. Pause the video, box the slide or the code on screen, paste it into your notes.
• PDFs that block copying. Scanned or protected PDFs render text as pixels. Draw a box over the paragraph you need.
• Zoom, Teams and Meet shares. Grab a URL or a config line from someone's shared screen without asking them to paste it.
• Terminals, VMs and remote desktops. Text in a VNC or Parallels window is just pixels to macOS, and that is all Screen OCR needs.
• Images in chat apps. A screenshot someone sent in Slack or WhatsApp, read in place.

Screen OCR needs macOS 14 or later and is free with a Korinotch account: register, sign in on the app page and download the notarized DMG. The first launch asks for Screen Recording permission, which is required for any app that reads the display. It pairs well with Clipboard Mini, which keeps the last several OCR results available if you grab a few in a row.

Which method to use

	Live Text	Shortcuts OCR	Korinotch Screen OCR
Price	Built in	Built in	Free (account sign-in)
Steps	Screenshot, open, select, copy	Hotkey, drag region	Hotkey, drag region
Reads any window	No	Yes	Yes
Reads video frames	Apple player only	Yes	Yes
Leaves a file behind	Yes	Configurable	No
Processing	On device	On device	On device
Speed	Slow	Medium	Instant

Other third-party options exist. TextSniper and CleanShot X both include screen OCR and are paid; Raycast has a community OCR extension. If you just want OCR without buying a screenshot suite, the free Korinotch app is the shortest path.

Tips for better OCR results

• Zoom in before you capture. Larger glyphs recognise more reliably than tiny ones, especially in code.
• Box a single column at a time so lines do not interleave.
• For code, paste into a plain-text editor first and fix indentation. OCR cannot tell tabs from spaces.
• Pause videos on a clean frame with no motion blur or subtitles overlapping the text you want.

Screen OCR is one of eleven free Korinotch utilities. See the complete mini apps guide, or the best Mac productivity apps for 2026 for how it fits a wider setup.

FAQ

Does Mac have OCR built in?

Yes. Live Text recognises text in images in Preview, Photos, Quick Look and Safari on Apple silicon and recent Intel Macs. It does not work on live video, paused streams in most players, or inside arbitrary app windows. A screen OCR app fills those gaps.

How do I copy text from a screenshot on Mac?

Open the screenshot in Preview or select it in Finder and press Space for Quick Look, then drag across the text and press Cmd+C. Or skip the file entirely: with Korinotch Screen OCR press Cmd+Shift+O, draw a box around the text on screen and it is copied immediately.

Is screen OCR on Mac private?

Live Text and Korinotch Screen OCR both use Apple's on-device Vision framework, so the image never leaves your Mac. Some third-party OCR tools upload captures to a cloud service; check before using them on confidential screens.

Can I copy text from a video on Mac?

Live Text works in Apple's own video player when a video is paused, but not in most browsers or third-party players. A screen OCR tool reads pixels from any window, so you can pause a lecture or Zoom share, draw a box and copy the text.