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Updated
How to Copy Text from the Screen on Mac
With Text Lens
- Click the Text Lens icon in the menu bar, and choose “Capture”.
- Drag over the text.
- The text is copied. Paste it with CommandV.
Text Lens works in images, videos, PDFs, presentations, and apps. It also reads QR codes and barcodes. You can set a keyboard shortcut for “Capture” in the settings, or turn on “Click menu bar icon to capture”. The text recognition runs on your Mac, so it also works offline.
Get Text Lens
Copy unselectable text on screen
$6, one-time purchase
- Platform
- macOS
- Requires
- macOS 26 or later
- Category
- Productivity
- Released
- March 2025
- Privacy
- No data collected
- Developer
- Sindre Sorhus
Without an app
macOS has Live Text, which finds the text in images. It works in Preview, Photos, and in images in Safari. To use it on text that is not in an image, take a screenshot first:
- Press ShiftCommand4, and drag over the text. By default, the screenshot is saved on the desktop.
- Open the screenshot in Preview.
- Drag over the text, and press CommandC. If you cannot select the text, choose “Tools › Text Selection”.