How to search the text in screenshots on a Mac
By Vishva Variya · Updated · 4 min read
Short answer
macOS reads text in images with Live Text (macOS 12 Monterey and later): open a screenshot in Preview or Quick Look and you can select and copy its words. Spotlight can find some images by their text, but results are inconsistent for files in Finder folders. To search every screenshot by its words reliably, use an app that runs text recognition over the whole folder.
How do I copy text from a screenshot?
- 1Select the screenshot in Finder and press Space to open Quick Look, or open it in Preview.
- 2Move the pointer over the text until it becomes a text cursor.
- 3Drag to select, then press ⌘C.
If you can’t select anything, check System Settings › General › Language & Region and make sure Live Text is turned on.
Can Spotlight search the text in images?
Sometimes. Spotlight uses on-device text recognition and can surface photos by the words in them, especially pictures in the Photos library. For loose screenshots on the Desktop or in Downloads it is hit and miss, it shows only a few image results, and there’s no way to ask for “only screenshots” or “only from last month” alongside the text.
Where are screenshots saved on a Mac?
On the Desktop by default, named “Screenshot <date> at <time>.png”. To change where they go, press ⇧⌘5, click Options, and choose a folder under Save to. Knowing the folder helps: you can search just there.
How do I find a screenshot by its file name or date?
Every screenshot’s name starts with “Screenshot” and the date, so a Finder search does part of the job:
- 1Open the Desktop (or your screenshots folder) in Finder and press ⌘F.
- 2Type Screenshot, then choose “Name matches: Screenshot” from the menu.
- 3Click + and add “Created date is within last 30 days” to narrow it.
This finds screenshots by when you took them, not by what’s in them.
Searching screenshots with Peekaboo
Peekaboo runs Apple’s Vision text recognition over your screenshots, photos and PDFs in the background, on your Mac, so their words become searchable like file names. Type “screenshots with wifi password” and it combines the kind of file with the words inside it. You can also copy the text out of one image or fifty at once.
- 1Press ⌘F and type what you remember, like “screenshots with tracking number”.⌘F
- 2Or press ⌥Space from any app for Quick Search.⌥Space
- 3Select any number of images and copy all their text at once.⇧⌘C
Questions
Does Live Text work on Intel Macs?
- Yes. Live Text works on Apple silicon and Intel Macs running macOS 12 Monterey or later, and it runs on-device.
Can I copy text from a PDF that is a scanned image?
- Yes. Open it in Preview; with Live Text on, scanned pages become selectable. For a whole folder of scans, a text-recognition app saves opening each one.
Does Peekaboo send my screenshots to a server to read them?
- No. Peekaboo uses Apple’s Vision framework, which runs entirely on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded.