About SafeOCR
We build OCR tools with one non-negotiable rule: your files never leave your device. Here is the team, the reasoning, and — since “private” should never be just a claim — the exact stack that makes it true.
Why we built SafeOCR
The SafeOCR Team started this project after running into the same problem repeatedly: every convenient way to get text out of a screenshot or a scanned document involved uploading the file to someone else’s server first. For a public flyer that is a non-issue. For a contract, a medical form, or a customer’s details on a shipping label, it is a real question with no good answer from most tools — you either trust an unfamiliar service’s retention policy or you skip the convenience entirely.
We wanted a third option: OCR that is genuinely useful and genuinely private, because the architecture leaves nothing to trust. SafeOCR is the result — a free, browser-based OCR tool where recognition happens entirely on your own device.
The engine, in plain terms
SafeOCR runs on PaddleOCR’s PP-OCRv6, an open-source text detection and recognition model pair, exported to the portable ONNX format. In your browser, that model is executed by ONNX Runtime (specifically its onnxruntime-web build) — a WebAssembly and WebGPU runtime built for exactly this: running a trained neural network client-side, with GPU acceleration where the browser supports it and an automatic fallback to WebAssembly where it does not.
Concretely, that means: the model files download once to your browser and are cached on your device. From then on, every image you drop in — a screenshot, a photo, a scanned page — is decoded and read locally. No image, and no extracted text, is ever sent to a SafeOCR server, because there is no server call in that path to make.
You do not have to take our word for it
“Runs locally” is a claim every privacy-focused product makes. We think it should be checkable, not just stated. Open your browser’s developer tools, go to the Network tab, and use any SafeOCR tool: you will see the one-time model download, and then nothing — no request fires while an image is recognized. That is the actual mechanism, visible in real time, not a policy we are asking you to trust.
What that architecture buys you
Because processing is local, SafeOCR is free with no accounts, no daily limits, and no watermarks — there is no server-side cost per image to ration. It also keeps working offline after the first visit, since nothing after the initial download needs a connection. And it means sensitive material — contracts, statements, internal dashboards, ID documents — can be read without ever leaving your machine.
Questions or feedback
We read everything that comes in. Reach the team at [email protected], say hello on Discord, or find the code — and the team — on GitHub. For how we handle data (including the advertising that keeps this free), see our Privacy Policy.