Press ⌃⌥⇧S
Waindow takes one in-memory snapshot of the connected displays before showing the selection overlay.
Screen text for Mac
Text you can see should be text you can copy.
When normal selection is unavailable, press one shortcut and drag over the words. Waindow copies recognized text without creating a screenshot file or sending the image anywhere.
Free · No account · macOS 13.1+ · Apple Silicon + Intel
Three steps
Drag, recognize, paste.
The frozen screen exists only in memory for this request. There is no image file, capture history, bundled OCR model, or network request.
Drag over the words
Select only the visible text you need. Press Escape or right-click to cancel without changing the clipboard.
Paste the result
Apple Vision recognizes the selected pixels on device. Waindow replaces the clipboard only when readable text is found.
Useful when selection is blocked
Copy the words, not another image.
- Images and video frames
- Copy a label, quote, or error message visible inside pixels.
- Remote desktops
- Bring visible text back to the local clipboard without relying on remote clipboard sharing.
- Protected or custom interfaces
- Read visible words when the app does not expose normal text selection.
- Multiple displays
- Start on any connected display; the selected region is mapped to that display's actual pixels.
Privacy and safety boundary
One explicit selection. No background watching.
What Waindow does
- runs only after you press the shortcut;
- uses Apple Vision on the selected pixels;
- copies non-empty recognized text to the clipboard;
- shows a compact success, empty, or error result.
What it does not do
- save a screenshot or recognition history;
- upload pixels or text;
- monitor the screen in the background;
- translate, summarize, or run a language model.
Honest fit
Use the smallest tool that solves the job.
- Use normal selection
- If the text already selects cleanly, copy it directly. OCR would only add uncertainty.
- Use Preview Live Text
- If the image is already open in Preview, macOS can select recognized text there.
- Use Waindow Screen Text
- If the words are visible now but cannot be selected, drag over them and continue working.
- Choose a specialist
- If you need OCR history, translation, tables, batch files, annotation, or cloud workflows.
- Recognition limit
- Accuracy depends on text size, contrast, resolution, language, and visual obstruction. Always review critical text.
- Permission
- macOS Screen Recording access is required because the visible pixels must be read for your selected request.
Included in Waindow 1.10.0