How to copy text from an image on a Mac

Live Text in Preview, Photos and Quick Look

1. 1Open the image in Preview or Photos, or select it in Finder and press Space for Quick Look.
2. 2Move the pointer over the text. It becomes a text cursor once macOS has recognised the words.
3. 3Drag to select the text, then press ⌘C.

Live Text arrived in macOS 12 Monterey. If the pointer never changes, check that Live Text is turned on in System Settings → General → Language & Region.

From a screenshot

1. 1Press ⇧⌘4 and drag over the text you need.
2. 2Open the screenshot from your desktop in Preview.
3. 3Select the text and copy it.

To skip the file on your desktop, press ⌃⇧⌘4 instead. The screenshot goes straight to the clipboard, and a clipboard manager that reads images can pull the text out for you (see below).

In Safari

Live Text also works on images in web pages. Hover over the words in the image and select them like ordinary text.

Make every image you copy searchable

Live Text works on demand: you open an image and pick the words out. Maclip does it automatically for every image you copy. When a screenshot or photo reaches the clipboard, Maclip runs Apple's Vision text recognition on your Mac and keeps the words with the clip, so searching your history for “invoice” finds the screenshot that contains it. You can copy the recognised text straight from the clip.

• Recognition runs on your Mac. Images are never uploaded.
• Works on screenshots copied with ⌃⇧⌘4.
• The recognised text is encrypted with the rest of your history.

Questions