Text Shot — Screenshot to Text for macOS

Text Shot is a free, open-source macOS OCR app that lets you select any area of your screen, extract its text on-device, and instantly copy it to your clipboard. Use it to copy text from images, videos, PDFs, and other non-selectable content without uploading screenshots or creating an account.

Screenshot

Who This Is For

• Keyboard-first macOS users
• People who extract text from videos, images, or on-screen content
• Users who prefer local-first utilities

Key Features

• Fully local OCR processing
• Smart line formatting
• Lightweight native macOS experience
• No login or account required
• Optional native app updates in signed release builds
• Fast capture-to-text workflow

Requirements

• macOS 13 or later
• Xcode Command Line Tools (swift, codesign, hdiutil, install_name_tool, otool)
• Node.js and npm

Install / Quick Start

Download the DMG from Releases, open it, and move Text Shot into your Applications folder. Launch the app, grant Screen Recording permission, set your preferred shortcut, and start capturing text.

Usage

1. Use your keyboard shortcut to start a quick screen selection.
2. Select the area that contains the text you want.
3. Text Shot extracts the text and copies it to your clipboard.
4. Paste the result anywhere immediately.

Default shortcut:

Cmd + Shift + 2

How It Works

1. Text Shot captures the selected screen region.
2. It runs on-device Vision OCR and reconstructs the layout with line grouping.
3. It places the result on your clipboard without uploading screenshot content to an external OCR service.

Privacy

Text Shot is designed to stay local.

• OCR runs on the Mac itself
• Screenshot content is not uploaded for recognition
• The app does not require an account or login
• Screen Recording permission is needed only so the app can capture the selected region

Development

For developers who want to build Text Shot locally:

npm install
npm run build
npm start
npm test

To create a distributable DMG:

bash scripts/release-native.sh --set-version <x.y.z>

Make sure the Sparkle signing key is available either in the login Keychain or via SPARKLE_PRIVATE_ED_KEY before publishing dist-appcast/.

Typecheck:

npm run typecheck

Clean:

npm run clean

See docs/TESTING.md for the full manual regression checklist.

Generated build and release outputs live under .generated/, dist-appcast/, and release/.

Troubleshooting

• If Screen Recording permission is missing, open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen Recording, enable Text Shot, and fully quit and relaunch the app.
• If capture still fails after permission is granted, remove the permission entry and grant it again when macOS prompts.
• If the hotkey does not open the capture overlay, confirm the shortcut shown in Settings..., re-record it if needed, then relaunch the app.
• If the settings window does not appear, open Settings... from the menu bar item and relaunch from /Applications or the freshly built app bundle.

Architecture

Text Shot is a native Swift menu bar app.

• native/settings-app - main app runtime, including menu bar item, hotkey handling, capture flow, OCR, permissions, settings UI, confirmation toast, and Sparkle update integration
• scripts - build, test, typecheck, clean, and release helper scripts for the SwiftPM native app bundle
• build - entitlements and export configuration for packaging and signing
• assets - app icon and tray assets

Contributing

Contributions are welcome.

1. Keep commits focused and descriptive.
2. Run npm run typecheck and npm test before opening a pull request.
3. If the change affects packaging or user-facing behavior, also run the relevant manual checks in docs/TESTING.md.
4. Every DMG release must bump the version, keep package.json aligned, and leave only the latest DMG and checksum in release/.

Credits

• Uses KeyboardShortcuts for global hotkey recording
• Uses Sparkle for native macOS updates
• See ThirdPartyNotices.txt for bundled third-party notices

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for full text.