Accessibility in Unpixel

Unpixel is built from standard macOS controls, so VoiceOver, keyboard navigation and the display settings in System Settings → Accessibility mostly behave as they do in Apple’s own apps. This page covers what’s specific to Unpixel, and one real limit: a screen capture starts with a drag.

VoiceOver

• Buttons with only an icon have names. VoiceOver reads them as More (the … menu), Search History, Clear Search, Open Link, More Actions, and Show Key or Copy Key in Settings → License.
• History rows read as one line: the kind of capture, the text, the app it came from and when. For example: “Link, apple.com, Safari, 5 min ago”. A translated capture adds “Translated from Japanese”. The row’s default action copies it again, and its other actions (Copy Original, Translate & Copy, Open Link, the Copy as formats and Delete) are offered as VoiceOver actions too.
• Results are spoken. After a capture, VoiceOver says, for example, “Copied:” followed by the start of the text, without moving your focus. Problems such as “No text found” are always announced. Successful captures are announced only while Show confirmation after capture is on in Settings → General, so leave it on. Play sound adds a short sound for success or failure.
• The capture overlay is labelled “Text capture selection”, with a hint about holding Space to move, holding Option to translate and pressing Escape to cancel.
• License steps are announced: activation, errors and the result of Verify Now. A hidden license key is read as “Hidden, ending in” followed by its last characters.

Tables with VoiceOver

A table capture doesn’t read out every cell. Instead:

• The confirmation says “Table copied” and the shape, spoken as “5 rows by 3 columns”.
• In history, the row reads “Table, 5 rows by 3 columns” and the first cells, such as “Name, Qty, Price”, then the source and time. Its hint is “Copies the table again”.

To check a table line by line, use Copy as Markdown or Copy as CSV and paste it into a text editor, where each row is one line. Tables explains the formats.

Reduce Motion, Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast

These live in System Settings → Accessibility → Display.

• Reduce motion: the confirmation fades in instead of springing, the panel and history rows stop animating, and the capture overlay appears without fading in. While a long capture is being read, the menu bar icon stays steadily dimmed instead of pulsing.
• Reduce transparency: Unpixel’s glass surfaces come from the system, so macOS makes them more solid, as in Apple’s apps.
• Increase contrast: the dark outline around the selection gets stronger, so its edge stays visible over white pages.

Since macOS Tahoe 26.1, System Settings → Appearance also has a Liquid Glass choice between a clear and a tinted look. Tinted glass is more opaque, and Unpixel’s glass follows whichever you choose.

Keyboard navigation

• In the menu bar panel: ⌘F searches, ↑ and ↓ move through history, Return copies, ⌘⌫ deletes and Esc closes. The full list is in Unpixel keyboard shortcuts.
• Opening the panel without clicking: give unpixel://history a hotkey in Raycast, Alfred or the Shortcuts app. The panel takes keyboard focus when it opens.
• Settings and the welcome guide use standard switches, menus and buttons. Turn on Keyboard navigation in System Settings → Keyboard to move between all of them with Tab. Return presses the highlighted button.

Selecting an area

Reading text from the screen means drawing a rectangle: press the shortcut, drag from one corner of the text to the other, and let go. Unpixel has no way to draw that rectangle with the keyboard alone. If dragging is hard, these routes work:

Mouse Keys. Turn it on in System Settings → Accessibility → Pointer Control. Then:

1. Press ⇧⌘2 and move the pointer to one corner of the text.
2. Press M (or 0 on a numeric keypad) to hold the mouse button down.
3. Move the pointer to the opposite corner with 7, 8, 9, U, O, J, K and L (or the keypad’s number keys).
4. Press . (period) to release. The text is copied.

While Mouse Keys is on, you can’t type with the keyboard, so turn it off again when you’re done.

Screenshot first, then read it. Press ⌃⇧⌘3 to copy a picture of the whole screen to the clipboard, then choose From Clipboard in the menu bar panel or the icon’s right-click menu. Unpixel reads all the text in the picture. A launcher hotkey for unpixel://clipboard turns this into two key presses. Read text from a copied image has more on this route.

Files. For images and PDFs you already have, Open Image… reads them without any selection, up to 50 pages per capture.