ocr

Capture a screenshot, OCR it with Apple Vision framework, and print the recognized text to stdout. Single binary, zero dependencies.

Install

brew install mekedron/tap/ocr

Or build from source (requires macOS):

git clone https://github.com/mekedron/ocr.git
cd ocr
make build
# binary is at ./bin/ocr

Usage

# Capture screenshot and OCR (English)
ocr

# Specify language(s)
ocr -l ru-RU
ocr -l en-US+ru-RU

# Copy to clipboard
ocr | pbcopy
ocr -l en-US+ru-RU | pbcopy

# List supported languages
ocr languages

# Show version
ocr -v

When you run ocr, the macOS screenshot selection UI appears. Select a region, and the recognized text is printed to stdout. Press Escape to cancel.

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
-l, --lang	en-US	OCR language(s), e.g. en-US+ru-RU
-x, --silent		Do not play sounds
-v, --version		Show version and exit

Languages

Apple Vision does not auto-detect languages. You must specify them with -l. To recognize multiple languages at once, join them with +:

ocr -l en-US+ru-RU
ocr -l en-US+de-DE+fr-FR

To see which languages are supported:

ocr languages

Keyboard Shortcut

You can bind ocr to a global hotkey using Hammerspoon (brew install hammerspoon).

Add this to your ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua:

-- Cmd+Shift+2: screenshot OCR → clipboard
hs.hotkey.bind({ "cmd", "shift" }, "2", function()
  local output = hs.execute("PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH /opt/homebrew/bin/ocr -x -l en-US+ru-RU")
  if output and #output > 0 then
    hs.pasteboard.setContents(output)
  end
end)

Adjust the language (-l en-US+ru-RU) and keybinding to your preference. Use -x to suppress the screenshot sound.

License

MIT