OCR Options in macOS

When you're faced with text that you can't select in the conventional way on your Mac (meaning with the cursor), there are several options. They all work in slightly different ways, and I use the one most appropriate for the task.
 

Live Text Recognition

The operating system has a feature called Live Text Recognition , an on-device computer vision feature that detects and extracts text from images and video so you can interact with it like normal text.

It uses Apple’s Neural Engine to perform optical character recognition; OCR, directly on your Mac. That means you can:

• Select and copy text from photos in Finder, Preview, Photos, or screenshots
• Click phone numbers to call via iPhone integration
• Translate detected text instantly
• Look up addresses, track packages, or search highlighted words

The key idea is this: pixels become selectable characters without sending your data to the cloud. It quietly turns static images into searchable, actionable information.

Cleanshot X

My go to choice is Cleanshot X, mainly because it's always running on my Mac anyway. Live Text Recognition requires you to open an image in an app like Preview first. Cleanshot X let's you select any region and get text immediately. The downside is that Cleanshot X is a paid app.

Raycast

There is a Raycast extension called Easy OCR that combines the features of Live Text Recognition and Cleanshot X. After you invoke it, Easy OCR can be used on an image you've already captured, the clipboard or an area you select on screen. Just search for it in the Raycast Store.

(Free)

Text Sniper

Even if you have the tools previously mentioned, there should still be room in your toolbox for TextSniper, an OCR app for YouTube videos, PDFs, images, online courses, screencasts, presentations, webpages, video tutorials, photos, etc.  Like Cleanshot X, you don't have to make screen captures and open them in Preview to grab text. In my experience it works better than alternatives like PDF Pen, Adobe products, Google Docs etc. As long as you can draw a rectangle around the text, it doesn't matter if it's rotating, angled or shadowed.

Unique Features

• Removes line breaks
• Built-in text to speech
• Additive clipboard feature if the text you are trying to capture can't obtained on one go
• Removes hyphens from words divided across a line.
• Decodes standard bar and QR codes. Enabling a keyboard shortcut lets you turn those into numbers.

Text Sniper is currently on sale for $2. That should be a no brainer. It is also available as part of SetApp.

OCRmyPDF

OCRmyPDF is an open-source command-line tool that adds a text layer to scanned PDFs while keeping the image intact. It creates searchable PDF/A output. You can use it via this Apple Shortcut..