text recognition for mac
some text on your screen simply cannot be selected. a frame of a paused video, a pdf that blocks copying, a screenshot a colleague pasted into a chat. hop.tools frames any piece of the screen and hands the text back — ready to read, fix and copy.
what it can read
anything the screen can show. hop.tools does not care whether the text lives in an image, a video or an app that disabled copying — it reads pixels, not files.
- a paused video, a webinar slide, a frame from a screen share
- a pdf that will not let you select a single word
- a screenshot someone sent you in a chat
- an error message from an app that refuses to be copied
- a photo of a document, a receipt, a book page
- a picture you drop into the window from Finder
how to extract text from your screen
- open the panel and pick recognition, or press the shortcut you set for it
- drag a frame around the piece of the screen you want — the same gesture as a screenshot
- the text appears in the window, where you can read it and fix a stray character before copying
- copy the whole thing, or only the part you need
there is a second way in: drop an image straight into the window, or paste one from the clipboard. handy when the picture is already on disk and framing the screen would be a detour.
line breaks survive
most recognition returns one long ribbon of words. a table becomes soup, a code snippet becomes unusable, and you spend longer repairing the result than retyping it.
hop.tools keeps the line breaks it found. a table stays a table, a snippet stays a snippet, and an address stays on three lines instead of one.
qr and barcodes in the same pass
codes are read together with the text — you do not switch to another mode or another app. a qr code that holds a link opens straight in your browser, so a code on a screen never sends you looking for your phone.
how it compares
macOS has Live Text built in, and for a photo in the Photos app or an image on a web page it works well. it is free and already on your Mac — if that covers your case, you do not need anything else.
where it stops: a paused video, an app that blocks selection, an arbitrary rectangle of the screen rather than a recognised picture. that gap is the reason this module exists.
dedicated apps fill the same gap and charge between ten and fifteen dollars for it. hop.tools does it for nothing, and brings fifteen other tools along.
nothing leaves your Mac
recognition runs locally, on Apple's own engine — the same one the system uses. no image is uploaded, no server sees your screen, and it all works with the wi-fi off.
hop.tools has no accounts, no profiles and no telemetry. the only thing it ever sends is its own version number when it checks for an update.
frequently asked questions
- does it work without an internet connection?
- yes. recognition happens on your Mac, on Apple's engine. nothing is uploaded and nothing needs a connection.
- which languages does it recognise?
- the ones macOS itself recognises — the list comes from the system, not from us, and it covers the major european and asian scripts.
- is it really free?
- completely. no trial, no pro tier, nothing to unlock. hop.tools is open source and the recognition module is open to everyone the same way.
- how is this different from Live Text?
- Live Text works on pictures the system has recognised — a photo, an image on a page. hop.tools frames any rectangle of the screen, including a paused video or an app that disabled copying, and reads qr codes in the same pass.
- does it need screen recording permission?
- it needs permission to capture the region you frame, and macOS will ask for it the first time. nothing is recorded and nothing is stored — the frame is read and dropped.
other tools in hop.tools
- Color Picker — Any pixel on screen, in hex, rgb and hsl at once.
- Archives — zip, rar, 7z and the rest — unpacked right where you are looking.
- Keep Awake — Downloads, renders and calls run to the end. Even with the lid closed.