Text Snatch

Copy text from anything on your screen.

Press ⇧⌘2, drag over any text — in a photo, a video, a PDF, or an app that won't let you select — and it's on your clipboard. Or click a window to take all of its text at once. The words are recognized on your Mac itself: nothing is uploaded, and there is no account.

Coming to the Mac App Store See how it works

• Drag, or click a window

  Drag a rectangle around the text you want, or click a window to take everything in it. Esc cancels.

• Anything on screen

  Photos, video frames, PDFs, and apps that won't let you select. If you can see it, you can copy it.

• Your own shortcut

  ⇧⌘2 to start with. Pick another combination in the menu, or record whatever you like.

• Line breaks, your way

  Keep them as they are on screen, or let wrapped lines flow back into paragraphs with split words rejoined.

• In your languages

  Recognized in the languages your Mac is set up for, so accented and French text comes back intact.

• Your last 25 copies

  Switch on Clipboard History and ⌘↑ steps back through what you copied — in any app, text or images. Held in memory only, gone when you quit.

• Nothing leaves your Mac

  Recognition uses Apple's built-in text recognition on the device. No network connections, no data collected — the privacy policy is short.

Requires macOS 11 Big Sur or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.