OneNotch
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Capture text from the screen (OCR)

Select any area of the screen to grab its text and QR code contents, ready on your clipboard.

Grab text from places where you can't select it: images, videos, scanned PDFs, app windows.

Grab text

  1. Press ⇧⌘2 or choose menu bar › Screenshot › Text (OCR).
  2. Select the area with the text (the border is green). Press A if you want to select a whole window.
  3. Release the mouse button. The notch shows Extracting content...; click ✕ on it to cancel.
  4. The text is put on your clipboard and a result card appears under the notch.
The OCR result card under the notch: Copied, the character and line count, a 5-line preview, and the Remove Line Breaks, Translate and Open Link buttons

The result card

  • The top of the card shows the number of characters and lines; the body shows up to the first 5 lines.
  • Remove Line Breaks: copies the text again with the lines joined into one paragraph, handy for text from narrow columns.
  • Translate: opens a translation of the text in the notch.
  • Open Link: appears when the text contains a web address.

The card hides on its own after 10 seconds (hover over it to keep it open), or press Esc or click ✕ to close it.

QR codes

QR codes in the selection are read at the same time as the text. The text content of a QR code is added at the end, under the heading QR Codes. If the area only has one QR code, you get exactly that code's content.

Good to know

  • Recognition runs entirely on your Mac. The first time in each session, it may take a few seconds to load the model.
  • The recognition language follows OneNotch's language (Settings › General › App language).
  • OCR doesn't save an image file and doesn't show the image preview card.
  • It needs the Screen Recording permission.

Also in Screenshot