Best Free Image to Text Converters for Mac & Windows 2026

Best Free Image to Text Converters for Mac and Windows in 2026

You have a screenshot, a photo of a page or a receipt and you need the words out of it without typing them again.

You probably do not need to install anything. Your Mac and your Windows PC can already do this and a browser tool covers the rest.

Below are seven free options that each one is actually good at and the one rule that decides whether any of them works. If you want to skip ahead the WebToolsHub image to text converter runs in your browser and needs no account.

Everything below this line is the post copy. Heading levels in the doc match the heading levels on the page.

How to get the text out of an image in under a minute

Five steps and none of them is making an account.

Open the converter and add your picture. Go to the image to text converter, drop the file in the workspace click to browse or paste a screenshot straight in with Ctrl+ V. JPG, PNG, WebP, BMP and GIF all work.
Set the Document Language. This matters more than people expect. The list covers English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Urdu and Hindi. Picking the wrong one is the fastest way to get nonsense back.
Fix the picture first if the text is hard to read. Under Image Enhancements there is Grayscale, High Contrast, Invert Colors for dark mode screenshots and Rotate 90 degrees for sideways text. Use these before you run anything.
Click Extract Text with OCR. The text appears in the Output box. Read it before you use it, especially names, dates and numbers.
Copy it or download it. You can take it as plain text, Markdown or JSON. Markdown is handy when the text is going into notes and JSON when it is going into a script.

One thing worth knowing. The whole job runs inside your browser so the picture never leaves your computer. The optional Translate step is the one exception and it is covered further down.

The seven free options side by side

All seven below cost nothing. The real differences are where they run what they can export and whether your picture leaves your computer.

Tool Runs on Best for Weak spot Does your image leave the device?

WebToolsHub Image to Text

Any browser

Saved files and screenshots 13 languages, export as txt md or json

One image at a time

No, it works in the browser

macOS Live Text

Mac

Selecting text inside a picture as if it were normal text

Fewer languages no file to download

Snipping Tool text actions

Windows 11

Grabbing text off the screen with no setup

Goes to the clipboard only

PowerToys Text Extractor

Windows 10 and 11

Copying text from anywhere even a paused video

Needs installing plus a language pack

Google Drive and Docs

Any browser

Scanned pages and multi page PDFs

Your file is uploaded and the layout often breaks

Yes

Google Lens

Phone and Chrome

Handwriting, street signs unusual scripts

Your image goes to Google

Yes

Tesseract

Mac, Windows, Linux

Hundreds of files at once and over 100 languages

Command line only no buttons

Two honest notes about this table.

First no free tool is perfect on every image so check the output every time. Any page quoting you an exact accuracy percentage for each tool made that number up.

Second, the last column is the one most lists leave out. For a payslip, a passport page or a medical letter, a tool that works inside your browser is a different thing from one that uploads your file to someone else's server.

Each one and exactly how to open it

1. WebToolsHub Image to Text for files you already have

Best when the picture is saved on your device and you need the words as a file. Set the Document Language, clean the picture up with Grayscale or High Contrast if it is faint then press Extract Text with OCR. You can save the result as txt, Markdown or JSON which the built in tools cannot do.

2. macOS Live Text for Mac users who just want to copy

Open the picture in Preview, hold the pointer over the words and drag to select them then Control click and choose Copy Text. If nothing selects turn on Tools then Text Selection. The same thing works in Photos Quick Look and Safari which is why most Mac users never need anything else. Apple says Live Text is not available in every region or language so check if your language is unusual.

3. Snipping Tool for a quick grab on Windows 11

Press Windows, Shift+S drag a box around the words and use the text action on the capture. Nothing to install and nothing to learn. It copies to the clipboard so there is no file at the end of it.

4. PowerToys Text Extractor for text you cannot select

Press Windows, Shift+T then drag over any part of the screen. The text lands on your clipboard even from a video frame or a locked app. It is a free Microsoft utility so you install PowerToys once. It uses your Windows keyboard language by default and other languages need an OCR language pack added first.

5. Google Drive for a scanned document

Upload the image to Drive right click it and choose Open with Google Docs. Google reads the page and gives you editable text underneath the picture. It handles long scans well and the layout usually comes out untidy. Remember that the file is now on Google servers.

6. Google Lens for handwriting and odd scripts

This is the one to try when the writing is by hand or the script is unusual. Point your phone at the page or right click an image in Chrome and choose the Lens option. The image is sent to Google so keep private documents away from it.

7. Tesseract for hundreds of files at once

This is the open source engine behind a great many OCR tools and it reads over 100 languages. It is a command line program with no interface so it suits people comfortable with a terminal. If you have one receipt, use anything else on this list.

So which one should you use?

Pick by what you are holding, not by which tool sounds best.

Text on your screen right now and you are on a Mac. Live Text. It is already there.
Text on your screen right now, and you are on Windows. Snipping Tool for a quick grab, PowerToys if you do this many times a day.
A saved photo, screenshot or receipt, and you want a file at the end. The browser converter, because it gives you txt, Markdown or JSON.
A private document you would not email to a stranger. Anything that works on your own device. That rules out Drive and Lens.
Text in Urdu, Arabic, Hindi or another non Latin script. The browser converter, where you set the language yourself.
Handwriting. Google Lens, and accept that you will be correcting it.
A folder with 400 scans in it. Tesseract.

Is it free and where does my image go?

Every tool on this list is free and two of them send your picture to a company's servers.

Free. The WebToolsHub converter has no account, no email, no watermark and no page limit. Live Text and Snipping Tool come with the operating system. PowerToys and Tesseract are free and open source. Google Drive needs a Google account.

Your image. The browser converter does the recognition inside your own browser so the picture is never uploaded anywhere. Live Text Snipping Tool, PowerToys and Tesseract all run on your machine too. Google Drive and Google Lens are the two that receive your file.

The one exception to watch. If you use the Translate button after extracting the extracted text, not the image it is sent to a third party translation service for that step. The tool says so on the page. Skip that step for anything confidential and translate it yourself later.

What this means in practice. Bank statements, ID cards, medical letters and contracts belong in an on device tool. A photo of a restaurant menu does not matter either way.

What actually decides whether OCR works

The picture matters far more than the tool. These rules come from the Tesseract documentation, the engine behind a large share of free OCR and they hold for the others too.

300 DPI is the line

Tesseract works best on images of at least 300 DPI which is why a sharp scan beats a phone snap almost every time. In plain terms the letters need enough pixels to have a shape. A small picture blown up does not count because enlarging adds no new detail.

If you are grabbing a screenshot of small text, zoom the page in first then capture. You get bigger letters and a far better result and it costs you one keystroke.

Dark text on a light background

Current versions of Tesseract expect dark letters on a pale background. A dark mode screenshot is the opposite of that which is exactly why white text on black so often comes back as gibberish.

This is what the Invert Colors option is for. Turn it on for dark mode screenshots and the same picture usually reads cleanly.

Straight lines not tilted ones

OCR splits a page into lines before it reads any letters. Tesseract's own documentation says line detection degrades badly when a page is skewed and that wrecks the output.

So photograph a page flat, from directly above not at an angle across your desk. Use Rotate 90 degrees for sideways text and retake the photo if it is tilted by more than a few degrees.

Leave a small border

Cropping tight to the words causes trouble. The documentation suggests adding a border of about 10 pixels and warns that a very tight crop on a single word can come back as an empty page.

The opposite also hurts. One word in the middle of a big empty background confuses the page analysis so crop to the text area with a little space around it.

Tables and receipts are the hard cases

Two known weak spots. Tables need custom layout handling so columns often come out jumbled into one run of text. And these engines are tuned for ordinary sentences so receipts codes and part numbers read worse than paragraphs do.

That is not a fault in any particular tool. It is why you always check totals dates and reference numbers by eye.

Pick the right language before you press the button

An OCR engine is matching shapes against a language it was trained on. Tell it English while feeding it Urdu and it will guess at the closest Latin letters. One dropdown chosen correctly often does more than every other fix on this page combined.

Why did the text come out wrong?

Almost every bad result is one of these nine. Find yours and the fix takes seconds.

What you are seeing Why it happens What to do

Random letters and symbols

The wrong document language is selected

Set the language to match the writing then run it again

A dark mode screenshot reads as nonsense

The engine expects dark letters on a pale background

Turn on Invert Colors

Faint or grey text is missed

Low contrast between the letters and the page

Try Grayscale then High Contrast

Nothing comes back at all

The crop is too tight or one word sits on a big background

Recrop to the text area and leave a small border

Every other letter is wrong

The picture is too small under about 300 DPI

Zoom in before you screenshot or rescan at 300 DPI

Lines run into each other

The page is tilted in the photo

Photograph it flat from above or rotate it upright

A table turns into one long jumble

Column layouts are a known weak spot

Extract it then rebuild the columns by hand

Handwriting is mostly wrong

Printed text is what these engines learned

Try Google Lens and expect to correct it

Numbers on a receipt are off by a digit

These engines expect words not codes

Check every total date and reference yourself

If two of these apply at once, fix the picture first and the language second. Those two solve the large majority of bad results.

Other free tools that help with the same job

PDF to Text Converter is the one you want when the words are in a PDF rather than a picture.
Image Cropper trims a photo down to the text area which on its own fixes a lot of bad results.
Image Compressor shrinks the file afterwards once you have the text you needed out of it.

Final Thoughts

Free image to text converters make it easier to copy text from photos, screenshots and scanned pages. Mac and Windows users can choose between built in features, online tools and dedicated OCR software.

For a simple browser based option try the WebToolsHub Image to Text Converter. Choose the tool that fits your workflow, prepare a clear image and review the extracted text for accuracy.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free image to text converter?

The one already on your computer for most jobs. Mac users have Live Text Windows 11 users have the Snipping Tool. Use a browser converter when you need the result as a file or a language the built in tools do not read.

Can I convert an image to text without uploading it anywhere?

Yes. The WebToolsHub converter does the work inside your browser and Live Text Snipping Tool PowerToys and Tesseract all run on your own machine. Google Drive and Google Lens are the two that receive your file.

How do I copy text from a picture on a Mac?

Open it in Preview, drag across the words then Control click and choose Copy Text. If the text will not select, turn on Tools then Text Selection.

How do I extract text from a screenshot on Windows?

Press Windows Shift and S to capture it then use the text action on the capture. For text anywhere on screen install PowerToys and press Windows Shift and T.

Does any free tool read handwriting?

Some of the time and none of them reliably. Google Lens handles neat handwriting best. Expect to correct names, numbers and anything unusual.

Which languages can I extract?

The browser converter covers 13 including Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Chinese and Japanese. Tesseract reads over 100. Always set the language before running it.

Is free OCR accurate enough for official documents?

For reading and copying, yes. For anything official check it line by line because numbers and dates are exactly where these tools slip.