How to copy text from an image or screenshot on Mac (OCR)

Copy text with Zinxo

1. Press ⌥⇧T (Area → copy text).
2. Drag over the text you want: a scanned PDF, an error dialog, a video call slide, a chart label, anything on screen.
3. The recognised text is copied to the clipboard; a toast says how many characters it copied.
4. Paste it wherever you need it with ⌘V.

Tables become CSV

Open the capture in Zinxo’s editor, press ⌘K and choose Extract text / table. When the recognised lines line up in a grid, it copies the table as CSV (“Table copied as CSV (4 rows)”); otherwise the plain text. It uses on-device text recognition, so no AI model is needed.

Copy text from older captures

Every capture is read in the background, so Copy text (OCR) in the floating thumbnail’s ⋯ menu or in History (⌘⇧5) copies the text of a screenshot you took earlier. The same text is what History searches.

The built-in ways on macOS

Live Text (macOS 12 Monterey and later) lets you select and copy text in images shown in Preview, Photos, Quick Look and Safari: hover the text and drag, or right-click and copy. It works when the image is already open in one of those apps; for text on the live screen, you first take a screenshot and open it.

Compared

Good to know

Zinxo recognises English, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, using Apple’s Vision framework. Handwriting, very small or low-contrast text can come out wrong, so check numbers before you rely on them. Recordings don’t have Copy text; take a screenshot of the frame instead.

FAQ