Copyfish alternatives for Mac

Copyfish is a long-running browser extension for grabbing text from images, video frames and PDFs. It’s free, open source and still updated, so the reasons to look elsewhere are practical ones: it lives in the browser, its standard engines work online, and going offline or beyond the browser takes a second install. On a Mac, you can read text in any app, on the Mac itself, with tools that are already installed or one small app.

What Copyfish does

As of October 2026, here’s what Copyfish’s own pages say:

• It’s a browser extension for Chrome, Edge and Firefox, free and open source under the GPL license. Version 7 came out in September 2026.
• Its online engines come from OCR.space. The README says it uses OCR.space’s free OCR API: your selection is sent there and the text comes back. The site lists two engines with different language coverage.
• It has a Local OCR engine on Windows and Mac. Copyfish says it runs offline, so no image data leaves your computer, but it needs the free UI.Vision XModules2 helper app.
• It can read the desktop, outside the browser, with the same helper app. Version 7 uses the system’s own region selector on macOS for this.
• It can translate the text it finds. Its pages don’t name the translation service.

Its README also describes a handy trick for video: mark the subtitle area once, then use the repeat button to capture each new line.

Why look elsewhere

Copyfish does what it promises. People on a Mac usually look for an alternative for one of these reasons:

• The online engines send your captures out. As of October 2026, OCR.space’s privacy policy says uploaded documents are deleted after processing, and that the IP address of each API access is logged for a month. That’s fine for a meme or a public slide, less so for a bank screen or a work dashboard.
• Offline and desktop use mean a second install. Both Local OCR and capture outside the browser depend on the XModules2 helper, alongside the extension.
• It starts in the browser. If most of your text is in a call, a PDF viewer or another app, you’re working around a browser tool.
• No Safari version is listed. If Safari is your browser, Copyfish doesn’t fit.

Browser-based alternatives

If you only read text on web pages, your Mac already has two options.

Live Text in Safari. Hover over text inside an image on a web page. When the pointer becomes a text cursor, drag across the words and press ⌘C. Recognition happens on your Mac, and Live Text has to be on in System Settings → General → Language & Region.

Google Lens in Chrome. Choose Search this tab with Google Lens from the Chrome menu, or right-click an image and choose Search with Google Lens, then drag over an area. It’s cloud-based: Chrome’s help page says a screenshot of the page and page data are sent to Google. It adds visual search, which Copyfish doesn’t try to do.

For subtitles, check whether the video offers a transcript or a subtitle file before you capture frame by frame. Our guide to copying subtitles from a video covers each case.

System-wide alternatives

These work in every app, not just the browser, and recognize text on your Mac without a helper app.

A Shortcuts shortcut. Chain Take Screenshot, Extract Text from Image and Copy to Clipboard, then give it a keyboard shortcut. It’s free and needs no extra software. It doesn’t translate on its own, but you can paste the text, select it, Control-click and choose Translate.

Capture apps. A global shortcut, a drag, and the text is on your clipboard.

• TRex is free and open source, works offline according to its README, and also reads QR codes and barcodes.
• Text Lens costs $6 on the Mac App Store as of October 2026. Its developer says it has no network access at all.
• Unpixel is our app. Press ⇧⌘2 over a browser, a video player, a PDF or a call, and Apple’s Vision framework reads the text on your Mac. Hold ⌥ as you let go and Apple’s on-device Translation framework copies a translation instead, which covers Copyfish’s translate step without a server. It needs macOS 26 on Apple silicon and has no trial.

One limit applies to every tool here, Copyfish included: video from streaming services that macOS protects from capture usually shows up black, so there’s nothing to read.

Privacy differences

Whatever you pick, a quick test settles it: turn off Wi-Fi and try a capture. If text still comes back, it was recognized on your Mac.

Which to pick

• You read text in web images now and then, in Safari: Live Text.
• You want to search or shop from what you see: Google Lens in Chrome.
• You need any app, offline, for free: TRex or a Shortcuts shortcut.
• You also want translation, tables and a history, all on the Mac: a paid capture app such as Unpixel.
• You switch between Windows, Linux and a Mac and like the subtitle repeat button: Copyfish is still a sensible choice, with Local OCR for anything private.