Short version: open a screenshot in Preview and select its text with Live Text. To find a screenshot by its words, try Spotlight or, for images in your Photos library, the Photos search. If you want a library of screenshots you can search by text, that is what Shelvo does.
Two different jobs
“Search text in screenshots” usually means one of two things: getting the text out of a screenshot you have open, or finding which screenshot holds a phrase you remember, like an error message or an order number. macOS is good at the first and only partly helps with the second.
1. Copy text out with Live Text
Live Text, built into macOS 12 Monterey and later, recognizes text in images on your Mac.
- Open the screenshot in Preview (double-click it, or select it and press ⌘O).
- Move the pointer over the text; it turns into a text cursor.
- Drag to select, then press ⌘C. You can also Control-click selected text to look it up or translate it.
Live Text works in Photos and Safari too. It only covers the image in front of you, and only in the languages Live Text supports.
2. Search screenshots in Photos
If your screenshots are in your Photos library, type a word in the Photos search field and it can match text inside images. On a Mac, screenshots are not added to Photos automatically; you would have to import them, and then they live inside the Photos library instead of in Finder folders.
3. Try Spotlight
Press ⌘Space and type a phrase. On macOS 13 Ventura and later, Spotlight can match text inside images, including image files in Finder. Results depend on what Spotlight has indexed, mix screenshots with every other file and email, and don’t give you a view of your screenshots by topic. It’s worth a try before you start opening files one by one.
4. Name files so search can find them
The most dependable built-in option is the oldest one: rename a screenshot with the words you’ll search for later. Finder and Spotlight always match file names. Select a file, press Return and type a name, or batch-rename a group from the Control-click menu. It works, but it is one more chore per screenshot.
Where Shelvo helps
Shelvo is a screenshot organizer for Mac that makes every screenshot searchable by its text, without uploading anything:
- When a new screenshot is saved, Shelvo files it into the folder you type and reads its text with Apple’s Vision framework, on your Mac.
- The library window has a search field. Type any word you remember from the image, such as an error message, an invoice number or a line from a slide, and matching screenshots appear. Search covers titles and the text inside, scoped to the folder you’ve selected.
- Open a result to select and copy its text with Live Text, or zoom in to read the small print.
- The text and the search index stay on your Mac. Shelvo goes online only to check for updates and to activate your license. The privacy policy lists exactly what those calls send.
- Screenshots stay ordinary files in Finder folders, so Finder and Spotlight still work on them too. See how to organize screenshots on Mac.
Shelvo needs macOS 13 Ventura or later. It is free for your first 30 new screenshots, then $5 once, with no subscription and no account.