If you attend a lecture and take a photograph of a whiteboard filled with text, or if you scan a physical business card, you normally have to manually type all of that information into your digital notes. This is a tedious and error-prone process. However, Google Keep features a powerful, built-in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine that can instantly scan any photograph, read the text inside the image, and extract it into fully editable, searchable text.
How to Extract Text from an Image
The “Grab Image Text” feature works on both the Google Keep mobile app and the web-based desktop interface. It works best on high-contrast images where the text is clearly legible, though it is surprisingly capable of reading messy handwriting.
- Open Google Keep and create a new note.
- Upload your photograph by clicking the Add Image icon (it looks like a small square with mountains inside it). Wait for the image to fully upload and process.
- Once the image is visible inside the note, click the image itself to open it in the full-screen viewer.
- Look for the Three Dots (More options) menu. On the web, it is a button below the image; on the mobile app, it is located in the top right corner.
- From the drop-down menu, select Grab image text.
The system will pause for a second while it processes the image. It will then instantly inject all of the extracted text directly into the main body of your note, sitting neatly below the image itself. You can now edit the text, copy it, or delete the original image entirely to save space.
Troubleshooting OCR Issues
If the “Grab image text” option does not appear in the menu, it means Google Keep’s backend servers have not finished indexing the image yet. When you upload a massive, high-resolution photo on a slow internet connection, it can sometimes take up to 60 seconds before the OCR engine finishes scanning it. If the button is missing, simply close the note, wait a minute, and try again.
Additionally, the OCR engine struggles heavily with highly stylized fonts, extremely low-resolution blurry photos, and text written vertically instead of horizontally. For the absolute best results, always ensure the text in your photograph is well-lit and perfectly level.