Extract text from any image

Upload, screenshot, right-click, or select a region. 16 languages. English works offline.

Free Chrome extension
  • Free, no account
  • English works offline
  • Collects no usage data
PickText OCR reading the text of a printed notice

Made for Chrome on a computerSend yourself the link, then open it in Chrome on your computer to add it.

Right-click

Right-click any image

One click to extract text from any image on any webpage. No uploading needed.

Right-clicking a picture on a recipe page opens its text in PickText OCR, ready to copy

Select

Select any region

Draw a rectangle around any text on the page. Only that area gets OCR'd.

Drawing a box around part of a page so PickText OCR reads only that part

16 languages

OCR in any language

English is bundled and works offline. Other language packs download on first use from jsDelivr and are kept for next time. Auto picks the language from the text of the page you're on.

Choosing one of the 16 languages PickText OCR can read

Tables

Reads tables too

Tables in an image come out as rows and columns you can export as CSV. Low-confidence words are highlighted in yellow or red so you know exactly what to double-check.

A table in a picture turned into a CSV file by PickText OCR

Full-featured OCR that runs on your device

Copyfish, one of the best-known OCR extensions, sends your image to OCR.space's online service to read it. PickText reads it inside the extension with Tesseract.js, so the image isn't sent anywhere.

PickText OCR compared with Copyfish
FeatureCopyfishPickText OCR
Where the text is readOCR.space online service (local with a desktop helper)Inside the extension, on your device
PriceFree, open source (GPL)Free
BrowsersChrome, Edge, FirefoxChrome
LanguagesOver 25, across two engines16
Works offlineWith the local OCR helperEnglish; others after first download
Translate the textYesNo
Table detection + CSVNot listedYes

Copyfish's column is from its own pages, checked October 2026. Full PickText OCR vs Copyfish comparison

Privacy by design

  • All OCR processing runs locally using Tesseract.js WebAssembly. No images or text are sent to any server.
  • English is bundled with the extension. Other language packs are downloaded on demand from jsDelivr CDN and cached locally.
  • It doesn't ask for access to every website: it acts on the open tab only when you use it. With the language set to Auto, it reads that tab's text on your device to pick the language; the text isn't sent anywhere.
  • History and settings are stored in chrome.storage.local on your device only.
  • No analytics. No tracking.

Permissions explained

  • activeTabAct on the open tab only when you use PickText: capture it for screenshot OCR.
  • contextMenusAdd right-click menu items for quick OCR.
  • storageSave your settings and OCR history locally.
  • offscreenRun Tesseract.js WASM in a hidden document (Chrome requirement for Canvas/WASM).
  • clipboardWriteCopy extracted text to your clipboard.
  • scriptingInject the region selection overlay when you choose “OCR selected region,” and read the open tab’s text when the language is set to Auto.
  • cdn.jsdelivr.netIts only website access: download a non-English language pack the first time you use it.

Ready to extract text from any image?

Free, English works offline, no account needed.