Live Text not working on Mac? What to check

You can see the words in the photo, but dragging across them selects nothing. Live Text on the Mac depends on a setting, a supported language, an app that builds it in and an image clear enough to read. When it fails, one of those four is almost always missing, and each takes a minute to check.

Start with the pointer test

Open the image and move the pointer slowly over the text. If Live Text has found words there, the pointer changes to the text cursor (the I-beam) and you can drag to select. If it stays an arrow or a crosshair, Live Text either isn’t active in this app or hasn’t recognized anything in this image.

Give a large image a second or two after opening it before you test. Then work through the checks below in order.

Is Live Text turned on?

There’s one switch for the whole Mac:

1. Choose Apple menu → System Settings.
2. Click General in the sidebar, then Language & Region.
3. Scroll down and turn on Live Text, the setting described as “Select text in images to copy or take action”.
4. Quit and reopen the app you were using.

If the switch isn’t there, Live Text may not be available for your language or region setup. That leads to the next check.

Is the language supported?

Live Text reads a limited set of languages, and Apple lists them on its macOS Feature Availability page. The list includes English, Chinese, Cantonese, French, German, Italian and Portuguese, among others, and it changes between macOS versions.

If the text is in a language Live Text doesn’t read, nothing gets selected, however sharp the image. Mixed text, such as a menu printed in two languages, can come out with gaps where the unsupported words were. And if the Live Text switch itself is missing, compare your region and languages in Language & Region with Apple’s list.

Is the app supported?

Live Text isn’t a system-wide layer. Each app has to build it in. Apple’s own image and video apps do, including Preview, Photos, Quick Look and Safari, and so do some third-party apps. Many apps don’t, including most chat apps, games and remote-desktop windows.

The workaround for any app:

1. Press ⇧⌘4, then Space, and click the window to take a screenshot of it.
2. Open the screenshot in Preview.
3. Drag across the text and press ⌘C.

In Preview itself, check Tools → Text Selection. With Rectangular Selection chosen instead, dragging draws a box rather than selecting words.

In Safari, Live Text works on ordinary images in a page. Text drawn as a page background or inside a canvas may not respond to it.

Low-resolution or stylised text

Live Text reads the pixels in the image, not what you see after zooming in, so pressing ⌘+ doesn’t help. What helps:

• Get a bigger original. Open the full-size photo rather than a thumbnail or a message preview.
• Enlarge a tiny image. In Preview, choose Tools → Adjust Size…, increase the size to 200% and try again. It adds no detail, but very small letters are sometimes easier to read once enlarged.
• Expect decorative type to fail. Script fonts, outlined or 3D lettering, text on a curve and logos often aren’t recognized at all.
• Straighten it. Text on its side or upside down needs turning first: Tools → Rotate Left or Rotate Right in Preview.

Videos: pause first

Live Text works on a paused frame, not on a playing video, and only in players that support it, such as QuickTime Player, Photos and Quick Look. On websites it depends on the site’s own player, so if nothing selects, take a screenshot of the paused frame and open it in Preview. Pause on a sharp frame; frames caught mid-motion are often too blurry. Protected video from streaming services usually shows up black to capture tools, so there may be nothing to read. Our explainer on why video goes black covers that case.

Restart and update

If Live Text worked before and stopped, quit the app and open it again, then restart your Mac. Install any waiting update in System Settings → General → Software Update; Apple has added Live Text languages in past macOS updates.

Still stuck: other ways to get the text

Shortcuts. The Shortcuts app’s Extract Text from Image action reads an image file or the clipboard without needing an app that supports Live Text. Our guide to extracting text with Shortcuts builds one in a few minutes.

A capture shortcut. When the text is in an app Live Text doesn’t reach, a screen OCR tool reads the pixels wherever they are.

In Unpixel

Unpixel also uses Apple’s on-device text recognition, the Vision framework, but it works on the screen instead of inside particular apps. Press ⇧⌘2, drag over the text in any window, a chat app, a game, a remote desktop or a paused video, and let go. The text is on your clipboard. There’s no screenshot to save or open.

It doesn’t get around the limits that come from the image itself. Very small, blurry or decorative text can fail, and protected video still captures as black. If Unpixel reports “No text found”, our guide to OCR finding no text goes through the causes.

Quick checklist

• Pointer test: does it turn into a text cursor over the words?
• Language & Region → Live Text switched on.
• The text is in a language Apple lists for Live Text.
• The app supports Live Text; if not, screenshot it and open it in Preview.
• Preview set to Tools → Text Selection.
• Sharp, upright, full-size image; videos paused.