How to copy text from anywhere on a Mac screen
Live Text copies words from photos and images in Preview, Photos and Safari. For text anywhere else on screen, take a screenshot and open it in Preview, or use Capture Text in Shotbolt, which reads any area you drag over.
What macOS does on its own
Live Text reads the words in a photo or image.
- Open the image in Preview.
- Hold the pointer over the text and drag to select it.
- Control-click the selection and choose Copy Text.
If you can't select text, choose Tools → Text Selection. In Safari, the same steps work on a picture on a web page, and the menu item is Copy. The setting is in System Settings → General → Language & Region, and Apple says Live Text isn't available in all regions or languages.
Apple's guides describe Live Text for photos and images. For text in an app, a slide or a video player, press Shift-Command-4 and drag over it to take a screenshot. macOS saves it to the desktop, and you can open it in Preview and copy from there. That works, and it leaves a file to delete afterward.
Copy text in Shotbolt
- Press Shift-Command-2, or choose Capture Text (OCR) from the Shotbolt icon in the menu bar. The screen freezes.
- Drag over the text. To read a whole window, press Space and click it. To read the whole screen, press F.
- Paste the text wherever you need it. A Copied text message shows how it starts, and No text found means there was nothing to read.
In All-In-One, select an area and press T for the same result. If you imported your shortcuts or chose another style, your key may differ: Settings → Shortcuts lists it. Like any capture, this needs Screen Recording permission.
For a screenshot you already took, right-click its Quick Access card or its row in History and choose Intelligence → Copy Text.
What it reads
Capture Text reads a picture of the screen, so it makes no difference whether the app lets you select the words: an image, a slide, a video frame, a button and an error message all count.
- Languages. It detects the language by itself. If it guesses wrong, choose yours under Languages in Settings → Capture.
- Line breaks. Turn off Keep line breaks in the same place to get one paragraph.
- QR codes and barcodes. What the code contains is copied, and a web link also offers Open. See QR codes and barcodes.
- Tables. Capture Table Pro (Shotbolt Pro) keeps rows and columns, to copy as TSV, CSV or Markdown.
Limits
- It can misread. Text recognition works from pixels and applies language correction, so compare a code, a serial number or a password with the screen before you rely on it.
- It reads what is on screen. Apple notes you may not be able to take pictures of windows in some apps, such as DVD Player. A window that stays out of a capture gives Capture Text nothing to read.
- It keeps no picture. Only the text goes to the clipboard, so nothing is added to History. To find the words again later, take a normal screenshot and search your captures.
Questions
Can I copy text from a video?
Yes, if the video shows up in a capture. Press the shortcut on the frame you want: the screen freezes while you select, so the words hold still even if the video keeps playing.
Is the text sent anywhere?
No. Capture Text reads the text on your Mac and puts it on your clipboard.