Best Copyfish Alternative

Last updated: October 23, 2026

Copyfish alternative that reads text on your device: Copyfish is free and open source, but it reads text through OCR.space's online OCR service; its local option needs a separate desktop helper. PickText OCR, our free Chrome extension, reads text from images and screenshots inside the extension with Tesseract, in 16 languages. English works offline; other languages download once. Copyfish also runs in Firefox and Edge.

Copyfish, from a9t9 software (about 600,000 Chrome users), lets you mark text in an image, video or PDF on screen and copy it, and can translate it. It sends the image to OCR.space's online service to read it, unless you install its desktop helper for local OCR. PickText OCR does the reading inside the extension instead.

PickText OCRFree Chrome extension: copy text from any image or screenshot, read on your device.See PickText OCR

PickText OCR vs Copyfish at a glance

Copyfish facts are taken from Copyfish’s own pages, checked in October 2026 (sources at the end of this page). Prices and limits change; check theirs before you decide.

Feature	Copyfish	OneClickPDF
Where the text is read	OCR.space online service (local with a desktop helper)	Inside the extension, on your device
Price	Free, open source (GPL)	Free
Browsers	Chrome, Edge, Firefox	Chrome
Languages	Over 25, across two engines	16
Works offline	With the local OCR helper	English; others after first download
Translate the text	✓	No
Table detection + CSV	Not listed	✓

When to pick Copyfish instead

→You use Firefox or Edge: Copyfish runs in Chrome, Edge and Firefox; PickText is Chrome only.
→You want the text translated, or to read text from your whole desktop (Copyfish's helper adds desktop capture).
→You want open-source code you can inspect: Copyfish is GPL-licensed.

Why people look for a Copyfish alternative

✗OCR runs on OCR.space's online service; the developer says images are deleted after processing.
✗Local OCR needs the separate UI.Vision XModule app (Windows and Mac).

What PickText OCR does differently

✓Text is read inside the extension (Tesseract, WebAssembly): the image isn't sent anywhere.
✓16 languages; English is built in and works offline, others download once from jsDelivr (a public CDN) and are kept for next time.
✓Table detection with CSV export, and low-confidence words highlighted so you can check them.
✓Right-click an image, take a screenshot, select a region, or upload a picture.
✓Free, no account.

Copyfish is a well-liked, open-source OCR extension, and its developer says uploaded images are deleted straight after processing. Still, the image you capture — maybe a screenshot of an email, a contract or a bank page — goes to an online OCR service unless you install the separate desktop helper.

PickText OCR keeps that step on your device: the Tesseract engine runs inside the extension, so the image isn't sent anywhere. English is built in and works offline; the other 15 languages download once from jsDelivr (a public CDN) and are kept for next time. It also finds tables (export as CSV) and highlights words it isn't sure of.

For whole scanned PDFs rather than images, OneClickPDF's OCR tool does the same in the browser and can make a searchable PDF.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a Copyfish alternative that works offline?

Yes. PickText OCR reads text inside the Chrome extension, so English works with no connection; the other 15 languages need one download each, then work offline too.

Does Copyfish send my images to a server?

Copyfish uses OCR.space's online OCR service, so the captured image is sent there to be read; the developer says uploads are deleted after processing. A local OCR option needs the free UI.Vision XModule desktop app (Windows or Mac).

Is Copyfish free?

Yes. Copyfish is free and open source (GPL) for Chrome, Edge and Firefox. PickText OCR is free too, with no account.

Can PickText OCR read tables?

Yes. It detects tables in an image and lets you export them as CSV for a spreadsheet.

How do I get text from a scanned PDF instead of an image?

Use OneClickPDF's OCR tool: it reads scanned PDFs in your browser in 16 languages and can save a searchable PDF, a text-only PDF or a .txt file.

Sources for the Copyfish facts

Copyfish home (OCR.space) (checked October 2026)
Copyfish welcome page (online and local OCR) (checked October 2026)
Copyfish on the Chrome Web Store (checked October 2026)
Copyfish data privacy (developer reply, UI.Vision forum) (checked October 2026)

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