I recently needed to extract a complex error message from a video tutorial - text that couldn’t be selected or copied. After wrestling with manual transcription for ten minutes, I remembered Text Lens sitting in my Applications folder. One keyboard shortcut later, I had the entire error message copied to my clipboard.
Text Lens turns your Mac into a universal text scanner. Point it at anything on your screen - images, videos, frozen PDFs, even presentations - and it extracts the text instantly. The app uses on-device OCR processing, which means everything stays completely private. No internet connection required, nothing leaves your machine.
The workflow is beautifully simple. Hit the global shortcut (customizable), drag to select any area of your screen, and Text Lens immediately recognizes and extracts all text within that region. I’ve used it on everything from blurry screenshots to technical documentation, and the accuracy consistently impresses me. It handles 18+ languages and even works with stylized fonts that would trip up lesser OCR engines.
What sets Text Lens apart is its versatility. Beyond screen capture, you can extract text from clipboard images, scan files directly, or even use your camera for physical documents. The QR code and barcode scanning works flawlessly too - handy for capturing WiFi passwords or product codes without typing.
Performance on my M2 MacBook Air has been excellent. The app launches instantly and text recognition happens in under a second for most content. Memory usage stays around 50MB when active, virtually nothing when idle. The menu bar integration is clean - just an icon that activates the capture mode.
Privacy was clearly a priority in development. Everything processes locally using Apple’s Vision framework. No cloud services, no data collection, no account creation. For anyone handling sensitive documents or working in regulated environments, this local-only approach is essential.
One minor limitation: the app struggles with very stylized or artistic fonts, though this affects all OCR tools. For standard text - whether on screen or paper - extraction accuracy is remarkably high.
Text Lens costs $6 on the Mac App Store and requires macOS 14 or newer. For students, researchers, developers, or anyone who regularly encounters non-selectable text, this tool pays for itself quickly. The time savings alone make it worthwhile, and the privacy-first approach sets it apart from cloud-based alternatives.
Sometimes the most useful apps are the ones that solve a specific problem elegantly. Text Lens does exactly that - turns any text, anywhere, into editable content with a simple drag and drop.
