SnapOCR
Free screen text extractor for Windows
Press Ctrl+Shift+S from any app, drag to select a region, and get extracted text in your clipboard. 6-pass multi-algorithm OCR with dark background auto-detection, smart upscaling, and Otsu thresholding. 100% offline — nothing leaves your machine.
Free forever. All features included. No account required. 4.8 MB MSI installer.
Key Features
Global Hotkey
Ctrl+Shift+S works from any app. Text goes straight to clipboard — no intermediate screenshot.
6-Pass OCR
Upscaling, Otsu threshold, adaptive contrast, grayscale, aggressive, and inverted — best result wins automatically.
Dark Mode Detection
Auto-detects dark backgrounds and inverts before OCR. White text on dark UI is handled automatically.
100% Offline
Uses Windows built-in OCR (Windows.Media.Ocr). No internet needed. Your data never leaves your machine.
Free & Open Source
SnapOCR is free for everyone. No Pro tier required.
SnapOCR
- Global hotkey (Ctrl+Shift+S)
- 6-pass multi-algorithm OCR
- Dark background auto-detection
- Smart upscaling (up to 4x)
- Auto-copy to clipboard
- HiDPI / 4K / multi-monitor
- All Windows OCR language packs
- Configurable settings
- Windows 10 & 11 support
System Requirements
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, 100% free with all features included. There's an optional Pro license key that removes the startup popup, but all OCR functionality works without it.
For accuracy on difficult text, yes. SnapOCR runs 6 parallel OCR passes and auto-detects dark backgrounds. It also works on Windows 10, while Snipping Tool OCR requires Windows 11. However, Snipping Tool has table extraction and QR scanning which SnapOCR doesn't.
No. Everything runs locally using the Windows built-in OCR engine (Windows.Media.Ocr). No internet connection is needed. Your screenshots and text never leave your machine.
Yes. Unlike Snipping Tool's Text Actions (Windows 11 only), SnapOCR works on both Windows 10 (build 1809+) and Windows 11.
If you don't need screen capture, visit ocrtool.io for free browser-based OCR tools — image to text, PDF OCR, handwriting OCR, batch processing, and receipt scanning. All run client-side, no upload needed.
Get SnapOCR Today
Extract text from any screen region — free, offline, no account required