If someone texts you a photograph of a business card, a restaurant menu, or a Wi-Fi password written on a whiteboard, you usually have to manually type out the text into your notes app while constantly glancing back and forth at the photo.
However, modern versions of macOS include a highly advanced machine-learning feature called “Live Text.” Live Text silently scans every image on your Mac for recognizable letters and numbers. You can safely bypass the tedious manual typing process and instantly extract the raw text directly from the pixels of the photograph.
How to Safely Extract Mac Text from an Image
You must use the native Preview application to leverage the Live Text OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine.
- Locate the photograph (JPG, PNG, or HEIC) on your Mac.
- Double-click the image to open it. By default, it will open in the Preview application.
- Look closely at the image. Wait about two seconds for the machine learning engine to scan the picture.
- Move your mouse cursor over any visible text inside the photograph.
- You will notice your mouse cursor change from a standard arrow pointer into a standard text selection cursor (an I-beam).
- Click and drag your mouse over the text in the image exactly as if you were highlighting text in a Word document. The text will turn blue.
- Press Command + C on your keyboard (or right-click and select Copy).
- Open your Notes app, a fresh email, or a Pages document.
- Press Command + V to paste the text.
macOS seamlessly converts the pixels into fully editable, raw text. This feature is processed entirely “on-device” using your Mac’s Neural Engine processor. The photograph is never sent to Apple’s cloud servers, ensuring your private documents and business cards remain completely confidential.