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. Everything happens on your Mac.

Getting started

• Text Snatch lives in the menu bar and has no Dock icon. Look for the blue icon at the top right.
• Press ⇧⌘2, or click the icon and choose Grab Text.
• Drag a rectangle around the text, or click a window to take all of its text. esc cancels.
• A small note shows what was copied. Paste it anywhere.

What it does

Everything below is in version 1.0. The settings live in the menu bar dropdown.

• Grab Text — drag a rectangle over anything on screen, or click a window to take all of its text. Works on photos, video frames, PDFs and apps that won't let you select.
• Grab Shortcut — ⌘2, ⇧⌘2 (the default), ⌃⌘2 or None, or record your own. Any combination using ⌘ or ⌃ works, and function keys work on their own.
• Keep Line Breaks — on, one line per line on screen. Off, wrapped lines become paragraphs and words hyphenated across a break are rejoined.
• Clipboard History — off until you turn it on. On, Text Snatch remembers the last 25 things you copied in any app — or as few as 5 or as many as 100 — text or images, and ⌘↑ steps back through them while ⌘↓ comes forward. A small panel shows what you are about to paste. Whatever you land on is on the clipboard, so ⌘V puts it wherever you were typing. It is held in memory only: nothing is written to disk, and it is gone when you quit.
• History Keys — ⌘↑/⌘↓, or ⌃⌘↑/⌃⌘↓ if you want to keep ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ for your other apps.
• Remember … items — a slider, anywhere from 5 to 100. Lowering it drops the oldest straight away.
• Forget After — clears the whole history once you have gone this long without copying anything or cycling through it. 15 minutes to start with; 5 minutes, 1 hour, or Never are the other choices. Never still means until Text Snatch quits.
• Clear When You Walk Away — empties the history the moment you leave: when the screen locks, when another user signs in, or when the Mac sleeps. Each is a separate switch. Clearing when the display turns off is there too but off to start with, because a short display-sleep timer would empty the history every half minute while you are still sitting there.
• Wipe the Clipboard Too — on to start with. When the history is cleared — by the timeout, by walking away, or by Clear History — the clipboard itself is emptied as well, if it is still holding something the history remembered. Without this, the last thing you stepped to would stay on the clipboard, where any app can read it. Something copied since that the history deliberately did not record, such as a password manager's item, is left where it is.
• Preview Colour — nine colours to click, or Other… for the system colour picker. The preview appears as you choose so you can see it, and the text switches between white and black to stay readable on whatever you pick.
• Clear History — forgets everything it is holding, right now. It holds 25 items by default; the 26th pushes the oldest out, and so do images once the whole history passes 32 MB.
• Launch at Login — starts Text Snatch when you log in. Install it in Applications first.
• Menu Bar Icon — colour, or monochrome that follows the menu bar's light or dark tint.
• Languages — text is recognized in the languages your Mac is set up for, so accented and French text comes back intact rather than as stray characters.

Questions

Nothing happens when I press the shortcut

Another app is probably using the same keys — macOS doesn't warn about that. Click the menu bar icon and pick a different combination under Grab Shortcut: ⌘2, ⇧⌘2, ⌃⌘2, or record your own. If the menu shows Allow Screen Access…, the permission is still missing.

macOS keeps asking for Screen Recording

After you allow it, the app has to restart. Choose Quit & Reopen in the macOS prompt, or quit Text Snatch from its menu and open it again.

Some of the text came out wrong

Recognition follows what's on screen: small, blurry or very stylised text is harder to read. Zoom in first, or select a tighter area around the text you want. Handwriting isn't supported.

Which languages can it read?

The languages your Mac is set to use, plus English — and French as well on Canadian systems. That covers English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian, Thai, Vietnamese, Arabic, Turkish and more. Change the order of languages in System Settings → General → Language & Region.

Can I keep the line breaks?

Yes — Keep Line Breaks in the menu is on by default. Turn it off and wrapped lines are joined back into paragraphs, with words split across lines put back together.

Can I start it automatically?

Turn on Launch at Login in the menu.

Can I get back something I copied a minute ago?

Turn on Clipboard History in the menu. From then on, ⌘↑ steps back through the last 25 things you copied and ⌘↓ comes forward again; a panel shows each one. Stop on the one you want and paste it with ⌘V. It only remembers things copied after you switched it on, it holds nothing on disk, and it forgets everything when you quit Text Snatch.

⌘↑ and ⌘↓ already do something in my other apps

They do — Finder uses ⌘↑ for the enclosing folder, and many editors use ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ for the start and end of a document. While Clipboard History is on, Text Snatch takes those keys everywhere. Choose ⌃⌘↑/⌃⌘↓ under History Keys to leave them alone, or switch Clipboard History off, which gives the keys straight back.

Will it remember my passwords?

No, on two counts. Password managers mark what they copy as concealed, and Text Snatch never records anything marked that way — the same goes for text marked transient or auto-generated. It also records nothing at all while macOS secure input is on, which is what the system switches on whenever a password field has the keyboard. Nor does it keep anything copied before you switched the feature on. If you would rather it never looked at the clipboard at all, leave Clipboard History off.

Does anything leave my Mac?

No. Text is recognized on your Mac, nothing is uploaded, and no data is collected. See the privacy policy.

How do I quit it?

Click the menu bar icon and choose Quit Text Snatch.

Version history

1.0 (build 15)

The clipboard history preview stays up for three seconds after each press instead of just under two, which leaves time to read a longer item before it goes.

1.0 (build 14)

Clearing the history now empties the clipboard too, so the timeout and walking away leave nothing behind for another app to read. It only does so when the clipboard is still holding something the history remembered, and it can be switched off under Wipe the Clipboard Too.

1.0 (build 13)

Lighter. Preview pictures are now made only when you actually look at an item, and are shrunk as they are read rather than after, so copying a screenshot costs nothing until you cycle back to it. The history also holds less image data — 32 MB rather than 64 — which is what that cost scales with. Text is unaffected: 25 lines of it come to a fifth of a megabyte.

1.0 (build 12)

Four things to keep the clipboard history to itself. It empties when you walk away — screen lock, another user signing in, or the Mac sleeping, each a separate switch under Clear When You Walk Away. Nothing is recorded while macOS secure input is on, which is what a password field switches on. The preview window is left out of screen sharing and screen recordings. And the bytes of a remembered image are overwritten before they are let go.

1.0 (build 11)

The preview now shows as much of a long clipboard item as the display itself will hold, rather than stopping at half the screen. It is only cut short when the whole thing would not fit on screen at all.

1.0 (build 10)

Other… now opens the colour picker beside the pointer instead of in the bottom-left corner of the main screen, where it was easy to miss entirely on a second display. The preview also shows much more of a long clipboard item, rather than cutting it off after five lines.

1.0 (build 9)

The preview can be any colour you like: nine to click under Preview Colour, or the system colour picker under Other…. The text switches between white and black to stay readable on whatever you choose.

1.0 (build 8)

The clipboard history holds 25 items instead of 10, and a slider in the menu sets it to anywhere from 5 to 100. New Forget After setting clears the whole history once you have gone 15 minutes without copying anything or cycling through it — 5 minutes, an hour, or never are the other choices.

1.0 (build 7)

The clipboard history preview is now as big as whatever it is showing — narrow for a short line, wider for a paragraph, and sized to the picture for an image — rather than always the same width. Image previews are also sharper on Retina displays.

1.0 (build 6)

The clipboard history preview is bigger and easier to see: a solid blue card instead of a translucent grey one, which was nearly invisible against a dark screen, with larger text and a reminder of which keys move through the list.

1.0 (build 5)

Clipboard History, off until you turn it on in the menu: the last ten things you copied in any app, text or images, stepped through with ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ and shown in a small panel as you go. It is held in memory only and is gone when you quit. The keys can be moved to ⌃⌘↑/⌃⌘↓ under History Keys.

1.0 (build 4)

First release. Grab text by dragging or by clicking a window, a shortcut you can change, optional line-break handling, launch at login, and a colour or monochrome menu bar icon.

Runs on macOS 11 Big Sur and later, as a universal app for both Apple silicon and Intel. Recognition happens on your Mac using Apple's built-in text recognition — nothing is uploaded, and the app makes no network connections at all.

To check which build you have, click the menu bar icon and choose About Text Snatch — it shows the version and the build in brackets, like 1.0 (4). If the app won't open at all, Finder won't tell you either; in Terminal, defaults read /Applications/Text\ Snatch.app/Contents/Info CFBundleVersion prints it without launching anything. Builds handed out before this one all reported build 1, so if yours says 1 it is superseded and worth replacing.

Contact

Questions, problems or suggestions: support@spssolutions.ca. Telling me your macOS version and what you were grabbing helps.