# Read text out of any image.

> Kopit recognizes the text inside your screenshots and images — right on your Mac. Search it, select it, and copy it out, without retyping a thing.

On-device recognition. Works with English and Simplified & Traditional Chinese.

## Steps

### Copy or pin an image

Take a screenshot or copy any image as usual — Kopit captures it like any other clip.

### Kopit reads it in the background

On-device text recognition runs quietly after capture, so the text inside the image becomes part of your searchable history.

### Search or select the text

Find an image by what it says, or select the text directly off it with Live Text and copy it out.

## Highlights

### Search what's inside your screenshots

Recognized text is indexed alongside everything else, so a search can match words that only appear inside an image — a code snippet in a screenshot, an address on a photo, a name on a slide.

- Find images by the text they contain
- Recognized text shows up in list previews
- Works together with type:, app:, and date filters

### Select text right off an image

Live Text brings selectable text to image previews and to pinned image windows. Drag across the words you want and copy them straight out — no separate OCR step.

- Live Text in the preview pane and on desktop pins
- Drag-select any region of text
- Copy clean, editable text to the clipboard

### On-device and private

Recognition uses Apple's built-in Vision engine and runs entirely on your Mac. Images and their text never leave your device — no upload, no cloud service, no third party.

## Key facts

- **Engine**: Apple Vision — on-device
- **Languages**: English, Simplified & Traditional Chinese
- **Where it works**: Image previews and desktop pins
- **Search**: Recognized text is included in history search
- **When it runs**: Automatically in the background after capture
- **Privacy**: 100% local — nothing is uploaded

## Related features

- [Screenshot & annotate](https://kopit.app/features/screenshot)
- [Pin to desktop](https://kopit.app/features/desktop-pin)
- [All features](https://kopit.app/features)

---

Canonical page: https://kopit.app/features/image-text

This Markdown version is provided for AI agents and LLM tools.