Copy Text from Image
Turn any picture into copyable text and click a single highlighted box to copy just the line you want — a code, an address, a quote — without dragging along everything around it.
Drop an image to scan
or choose an option below
JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC
Or press Ctrl/Cmd+V to paste
Copying text from an image should be as quick as copying text from a web page — but a photo is just pixels, with no text layer to highlight. That is the gap this tool closes. SafeOCR reads the image on your device and lays a clickable box over every line it finds, so instead of retyping a phone number or squinting to transcribe a code by hand, you point at the line and copy it.
The box-select feature is what makes this different from a plain image-to-text dump. Real images are cluttered: a receipt has a dozen rows, a screenshot has menus and timestamps, a business card mixes a name, a title, an email, and a phone number. When you only want one of those, pulling the whole block and then hunting through it is a chore. Here, each detected line is its own target — click the box over the confirmation code, the street address, or the quote you want, and only that text lands on your clipboard. Need everything? A single Copy all grabs the full text in natural reading order, and you can also export a .txt or .docx.
Knowing how to copy text from an image usually sends people to an app that uploads their picture to a server first. SafeOCR does not. The recognition engine — running on WebAssembly with WebGPU acceleration and the PP-OCRv6 model — executes right inside your browser tab. Your image never leaves the machine, which matters when you are lifting text off an ID, a medical form, a paycheck, or an internal dashboard. It handles JPG, PNG, WEBP, and HEIC, reads more than fifty languages, and costs nothing.
Because everything is local, there are no rate limits and no sign-up wall between you and your clipboard. Load an image, click a box, paste it wherever you were headed — a message, a spreadsheet cell, a terminal, a form field. When you need to select text from an image one line at a time, that clickable-box workflow is the fastest, most private way to do it.
Working from a screenshot you just took rather than a saved file? Screenshot to Text reads it straight off the clipboard with Ctrl/Cmd+V; and for the fuller writeup of the underlying extraction workflow, see Extract Text from Image.
How to copy text from an image
Drop in your image
Add a screenshot, photo, or scan by dragging, browsing, pasting, or using your camera. JPG, PNG, WEBP, and HEIC all work.Pick the block you want
Every line of recognized text becomes a clickable box drawn over the image. Click one box to select exactly that line — no careful dragging required.Copy it
Copy the selected line to your clipboard with one tap, or use Copy all to grab the full text. Export a .txt or .docx if you would rather save it.
Copying text from images — FAQ
How do I copy text from an image without getting the whole thing?
Recognized text is drawn as clickable boxes on top of your image. Click the box over the line you care about and only that text is selected and copied — the surrounding lines stay out of your clipboard.
Can I select text from an image the way I would on a web page?
Close to it. Because a photo has no real text layer, you cannot drag-highlight raw pixels, so SafeOCR gives you the next best thing: box-select. Each detected line is a target you click to select, then copy.
Can I copy several lines or the entire block of text at once?
Yes. Use Copy all to send the complete recognized text to your clipboard in reading order, or click individual boxes when you only need one or two lines.
Does copying keep the original formatting?
You get clean, plain text. Line order is preserved so multi-line content reads correctly, but fonts, colors, and exact spacing from the image are not carried over.
Is the image uploaded anywhere when I copy from it?
No. The picture is decoded and read entirely on your device, and the copied text goes straight to your local clipboard. Nothing is sent to a server or stored.
Do I need an account or an internet connection?
No account, ever, and it is free with no limits. After the one-time engine download the tool keeps working offline, so you can copy text from images on a plane or behind a firewall.
Read: How to copy text you can't select
Runs entirely in your browser — your files never leave your device.
How we built thisLast updated July 4, 2026