To find a screenshot by a word that's in it, you need something that has read the text in the picture. On a Mac, Photos does that for images in your library: search for the word and pictures containing it show up. Screenshots saved to the Desktop aren't in Photos, and Finder searches their names, not what they show. For those, use a tool that reads every image you copy. Toolnotch's clipboard history, Pasteback, does it on your Mac: press ⇧⌘C, type the word, and the screenshot appears.

Below: what macOS can search, the gaps, and how Pasteback handles it.

What macOS can already find

Photos. Since macOS Monterey, Photos reads the text in your pictures (Live Text). Type a word in Photos' search field and pictures that show it come up. That covers photos and any screenshot you've added to your library.

Live Text in an open image. Open a screenshot in Preview or Quick Look and you can select and copy its text. That helps once you've found the file, not before.

Finder and Spotlight. A screenshot is named after the date and time it was taken, so searching Finder for "invoice" won't find the screenshot of an invoice. Don't count on Spotlight for the text inside a screenshot on your Desktop either.

The usual workaround is to drag screenshots into Photos, or to rename the ones that matter. Both take discipline, and most screenshots are taken for a minute and forgotten: a slide in a call, an error message, a confirmation number, an address in a chat.

Apps that read your screenshots

Several apps index the text in screenshots: Raycast's screenshot search, Find My Screenshot, ScreenVault and Bunny Screenshot among them. Each works a little differently, from a folder you choose to a menu bar app; check how each one stores what it reads.

Pasteback takes another route: it's a clipboard history that reads every image you copy, so screenshots, pictures copied from a browser and images from chats are all searchable in the same place as your text. The rest of this guide covers it, because that's the one I build and can describe exactly.

How Pasteback reads your images

When an image lands in your history, Pasteback reads its text in the background with Apple's own text recognition (Vision), at low priority, a few hundred milliseconds per picture. It recognises the language by itself and also reads QR codes and bar codes. Images already in your history are read too, in the background, newest first, up to 1,000 per launch, and each picture only once.

Everything happens on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded, and the history stays in Toolnotch's folder, with no cloud and no sync. If the text in a picture looks like a password or an API key, it isn't written to disk unless you chose to keep secrets.

The setting is Settings › Pasteback › Text in images › Read text in images. It's on by default.

Getting screenshots into the history

Pasteback sees what's on your clipboard. Two ways to make sure a screenshot gets there:

  • Add Control to the screenshot shortcut. ⌃⇧⌘4 (or ⌃⇧⌘3 for the whole screen) copies the screenshot to the clipboard instead of saving a file. It goes straight into your history.
  • Copy an image anywhere. Right-click › Copy Image in a browser, ⌘C on a picture in a chat or in Preview: each one is recorded and read.

A screenshot saved as a file on the Desktop isn't on the clipboard, so it isn't in the history. Toolnotch puts new screenshot files on Pasteback's shelf for 24 hours, so you can drag them into an app; see drag screenshots into apps. The shelf searches file names, not the text inside.

Search a word, find the picture

  1. Press ⇧⌘C. Your history opens under the notch.
  2. Type a word that was in the picture, at least three characters: "wi-fi", "invoice", "orion". The search field has focus already.
  3. The images whose text contains it appear in the list, next to any text clip that matches. The Media chip (or Tab until it's selected) hides the text clips.

Search ignores case and matches part of a word, so "atel" finds "Atelier-5G". It's a substring search, not a fuzzy one: a typo won't match.

Copy the text out of it

With the image selected, press ⌥↩, or click « Copy text (OCR) » under the preview. A line sweeps down the picture, each line of text it found lights up, then the history closes and the text is on your clipboard. An island under the notch confirms: « Text copied · 4 lines · Launch sync · Friday », the line count and the first line.

The text also joins your history as a new clip, so you can find it again as text. If the picture holds only a QR code, the island says « Code copied » and you get the code's content. If there's nothing readable, the preview says « No text found » and the history stays open.

Because the text was read in advance, this is instant on a picture Pasteback has already processed.

For text that's on screen right now and not in a picture yet, such as a slide in a video call, ⇧⌘2 lets you drag over it and copies its text directly. That's covered in copy text from anywhere on the screen.

Limits

  • Only images that went through the clipboard are searchable. Screenshot files you never copied aren't.
  • Text recognition is good on screenshots and clear photos, weaker on small or blurry text and handwriting. Check numbers and codes after you paste: a 0 read as O is the classic error.
  • You get text line by line, not the layout of a table.
  • The history keeps your last 10,000 clips by default, images included, and you can raise the limit. Pinned clips are always kept.
  • Toolnotch needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later and has no trial build. The home page has a demo in the browser, and refunds are open for 14 days.

FAQ

Does it send my screenshots anywhere?

No. Text recognition runs on your Mac with Apple's Vision framework, and the history never leaves the Mac.

Will it slow my Mac down?

Reading runs at low priority, one picture at a time. The first pass over a large existing history takes a while in the background; after that, each new image is read as it arrives.

Can I turn it off?

Yes: Settings › Pasteback › Read text in images. Search then matches only text clips, file names and the word "Image". ⌥↩ still works on a picture; it just reads it at that moment.

Which languages does it read?

The ones Apple's text recognition supports on your version of macOS, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. It detects the language by itself.