How to Copy Text from an Image on iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac

Phones and computers now have some built-in ways to copy text from pictures, but they work differently on each device, and some only support a few languages. Here is how to do it on each platform, and a free option that works the same way everywhere.

iPhone and iPad (Live Text)

• Open the photo in the Photos app.
• Touch and hold a word, then drag the handles to select the text you want.
• Tap Copy, then paste it wherever you need.

Live Text needs a recent iPhone and works best with printed text in supported languages.

Android (Google Lens)

• Open the image in Google Photos and tap Lens, or open the Google app and tap the camera icon.
• Tap Text, then select the words you want.
• Tap Copy text.

Google Lens sends your image to Google's servers to read it, which matters if the picture contains personal information.

Windows

• Press Win+Shift+S and select the area with the text.
• In recent versions of Windows 11, open the capture in the Snipping Tool and use Text actions to copy the text.
• Or simply paste the capture into a free online tool like our screenshot to text converter with Ctrl+V.

Mac

• Open the image in Preview or Photos and select the text directly with your cursor (Live Text).
• Or press Cmd+Shift+Ctrl+4 to copy an area of the screen, then paste it into our converter with Cmd+V.

One way that works on every device

If your device doesn't support Live Text or Lens, if you need Hindi or Marathi, or if you don't want your image sent to a server, use the free image to text converter in any browser. It works the same on phones and computers, handles batches of up to 10 images, reads dark-mode screenshots and tables, and processes everything on your own device.