TextSniper
TextSniper is a lightweight macOS menu bar utility that captures text from anywhere on your screen and copies it as editable text.
What is TextSniper?
TextSniper is a macOS OCR utility published by Valerijs Boguckis. It is designed to let you select an area of the screen and quickly extract non-selectable text from images, videos, PDFs, presentations, webpages, and other on-screen content. The app runs from the menu bar rather than the Dock, so many users encounter it as a small background-ready helper they trigger with a keyboard shortcut. Its verified product site also describes barcode and QR code reading, plus a text-to-speech option for recognized text. TextSniper typically needs screen capture permission to perform its main function, because it reads text from a user-selected screen region. Most users install it as a focused productivity tool for copying text without retyping, especially during research, study, support work, and general everyday Mac use.
Key features
- Extracts text from a selected area of the screen using OCR
- Copies recognized text directly to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere
- Works with text shown in images, videos, PDFs, presentations, and webpages
- Runs from the macOS menu bar for quick access without a full main window
- Supports a customizable keyboard shortcut for starting capture
- Can recognize QR codes and barcodes from on-screen content
- Includes a text-to-speech option for recognized text
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Safety overview
Status: Mostly safe
This is a legitimate commercial Mac utility with a verified publisher-owned product website. It is generally safe when obtained from the official site or the Mac App Store, but it may request screen recording or screen capture access because OCR is performed on selected screen content. That permission can expose sensitive on-screen information if the app is misused, so users should review granted privacy permissions and install only from trusted sources.
Recommendation: Keep it if you use on-screen text capture, OCR, or menu bar extraction workflows. If you do not use it, removing it is usually optional rather than urgent; just make sure any screen capture permissions granted to it still match your preferences.
Common paths
/Applications/TextSniper.app~/Applications/TextSniper.app
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