How to search photos by the text in them

The short answer

Run optical character recognition (OCR) over your images so the words in them become searchable text, then search for a word you remember. Many photo apps now do this automatically for their own library. For folders of images outside a photo app, you need a tool that reads and indexes them.

Built-in options you may already have

Apple's Live Text recognizes text in photos on recent versions of macOS and iOS, and in recent versions the search in Apple Photos can find pictures by the words in them. Google Photos offers similar search for photos you've backed up to it. These are the easiest place to start if your photos already live there.

The limits: they cover the photos inside that app's library, not the thousands of JPGs and screenshots in folders on your drive, and cloud-based options mean your images sit on someone else's servers. Search results can also be hard to narrow when a common word appears in many pictures.

What text search in images is good at

OCR works best on clear, printed text that faces the camera. Expect good results from:

• Screenshots, slides and documents.
• Signs, labels, packaging and book covers.
• Whiteboards with reasonably neat writing.
• Receipts and tickets, as long as they're in focus.

And where it struggles

Messy handwriting, tiny or blurry text, extreme angles, and stylized fonts all reduce accuracy. If a search fails, try a different distinctive word from the image, or search by what the picture shows instead of what it says. Combining text search with a visual description (whiteboard with a roadmap) is often the fastest way in.

Language matters too. Text recognition is usually strongest for Latin-script languages, and results for other scripts vary by tool, so test with a few of your own images before relying on it for a large archive.

How to do it in MediaFind

MediaFind indexes photos on your computer next to your video and audio, reading the text in each image.

1. Add a folder of images. JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, GIF, TIFF and BMP are supported.
2. Let MediaFind index it. It reads the text in each picture and builds a visual index, on your computer.
3. Search for a word or phrase that appears in the image, like a product name or a slide title.
4. If you don't remember the words, describe the picture instead, search by color, or use a sample image to find similar ones.
5. The same search also finds that text in video frames, so a slide that appeared in a recorded talk turns up next to the photo you took of it.

Tips

Screenshots are the best case for this, since the text is sharp. If you mainly want photo search without the video features, the free PhotoFind app does local photo search on its own. For screen recordings specifically, see searching screen recordings, and for how the OCR pipeline works, read on-screen text search.

Frequently asked questions

Can I search my photos for text without uploading them?

Yes. On-device tools read text locally. MediaFind runs text recognition on your computer and never uploads the images.

Does it work on handwriting?

Sometimes. Neat handwriting on a whiteboard is often readable, but messy or small handwriting is much less reliable than printed text.

Can I search screenshots by their text?

Yes. Screenshots are the easiest case because the text is sharp and straight, so recognition is usually very accurate.

Which image formats can MediaFind index?

JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, GIF, TIFF and BMP.