Take text off the screen

Text that cannot be selected — a video frame, a scanned PDF, a screenshot someone sent you — is still text. Capture reads it off the screen.

1. Press ⇧⌘2. The pointer becomes a crosshair.
2. Drag a box around the words. Press Space first to grab a whole window instead.
3. Let go. The text is on your clipboard, and a banner says how much was read.

Recognition happens on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded, and it works offline.

The permission

The first capture asks for Screen Recording and shows the same drag-to-grant window as the install. macOS requires it for anything that reads the screen.

Reading text inside an image you copied

An image already in your history carries its recognised text too. Open its preview and press ⇧⏎ to paste the words instead of the picture, or use Copy Text.

Esc cancels the crosshair, and nothing is copied.