How to Copy Text From a Screenshot on Windows, Mac, Android or iPhone

The short answer

Most devices can now copy text from a screenshot without extra software. On Windows 11, use the Snipping Tool's Text actions button. On a Mac, open the image in Preview and select the text with Live Text. On an iPhone, touch and hold the text in a photo. On Android, use Google Lens and tap Select text. If your device lacks these, or you need a language the built-in feature does not cover, the free Image to Text (OCR) tool reads JPG, PNG and WebP images in 12 languages and runs the recognition in your browser.

Which method to use

Device	Built-in method	Best for
Windows 11	Snipping Tool, Text actions	Anything on your screen
Windows (power users)	PowerToys Text Extractor	Grabbing text from any window with a shortcut
Mac	Live Text in Preview or Photos	Saved screenshots and photos
iPhone / iPad	Live Text in Photos or Camera	Photos, screenshots, signs and documents
Android	Google Lens, Select text	Photos and screenshots in your gallery
Any device with a browser	Online OCR tool	Older devices, other languages, a downloadable .txt

Windows 11: Snipping Tool

Press Windows + Shift + S, or open Snipping Tool, and capture the area with the text.

Open the capture in Snipping Tool and click the Text actions button in the toolbar.

Select the text you need, right-click and choose Copy text, or choose Copy all text to take everything.

Paste it wherever you need it.

This works on screenshots you take with Snipping Tool. For an image file that is already saved, open it in Snipping Tool first, or use one of the other methods below.

PowerToys Text Extractor

Microsoft's free PowerToys utilities include Text Extractor. After installing PowerToys and enabling Text Extractor, press Windows + Shift + T, drag a box around any text on screen, and it goes straight to your clipboard. It is quick for copying an error message from a dialog box or text from a video frame.

Mac: Live Text in Preview

Open the screenshot or image in Preview.

Move the pointer over the text and drag to select it.

Control-click the selection and choose Copy Text.

If you cannot select anything, choose Tools > Text Selection in Preview. Apple notes that Live Text is not available in all regions or languages, so check Apple's feature availability page if it does not work for your language.

iPhone and iPad: Live Text

Open the photo or screenshot in the Photos app.

Touch and hold a word, then drag the grab points to adjust the selection.

Tap Copy, or Select All to copy all the text.

Apple's support page lists an iPhone XS, iPhone XR or later with iOS 15 or later as the requirement. To use Live Text for all supported languages, turn it on in Settings > General > Language & Region.

Android: Google Lens

Open the Google app and tap the Lens icon in the search bar.

Choose the screenshot or photo from your gallery, or take a new photo.

Tap the text, or drag the corners of the box over it, until a Select text button appears.

Tap Select text, then Copy. Lens also offers Listen and Translate.

Some Android phones have their own text recognition in the gallery or screenshot editor as well; the option names vary by manufacturer.

Online: Image to Text tool

Use the online tool when you are on an older computer, a shared or locked-down PC where you cannot install anything, or when you want the result as a text file.

Open Image to Text (OCR).

Choose the Text language from the drop-down first: English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified) or Japanese.

Drop the image on the upload area or click to browse. JPG, PNG and WebP work.

Wait while the progress bar runs. The first time you use a language, its data file downloads once; after that the recognition runs on your device.

Check the result and the confidence percentage, then click Copy text or Download .txt.

The tool reads one language at a time, so for a screenshot that mixes Hindi and English, run it once in each language and combine the parts. For Hindi specifically, see extracting Hindi text from an image.

Why the copied text comes out wrong

Built-in and online OCR fail for the same reasons. Fix the image, not the text:

• The screenshot is too small. Text a few pixels high is hard to read. Zoom in on screen before taking the screenshot, so letters are larger.
• The text is cropped. Cutting off the tops or bottoms of letters confuses recognition. Leave a margin around the text.
• Low contrast. Light grey text on white, or text over a photo, reads poorly. Crop to just the text area.
• Compression blur. A screenshot forwarded several times through messaging apps loses detail. Use the original if you can.
• Wrong language selected. In the online tool, Hindi text read with English selected produces nonsense.
• Columns and tables. OCR reads line by line, so two columns can merge into one jumbled paragraph. Crop each column separately.

Even with a clean image, check numbers, names and email addresses carefully. Common slips are 0 and O, 1 and l, and rn read as m.

Which should you choose?

• On a modern phone: the built-in option (Live Text or Google Lens) is usually fastest.
• On Windows 11: Snipping Tool's Text actions for screenshots; PowerToys for frequent use.
• On a Mac: Preview's Live Text.
• When none of those is available, or you need a .txt file: the online tool.

For tips on getting the cleanest result from any OCR tool, read the practical OCR guide. If your text is in a scanned PDF rather than an image, convert the page to an image first with PDF to JPG and then run OCR on it.