Install ClipOCR.

1. Get the universal DMG from the latest release and install the app at a stable location, normally /Applications/ClipOCR.app.
2. Allow ClipOCR under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording (wording varies by macOS version). Restart the app if macOS asks.
3. Use Cmd+Alt+X or Capture in the menu bar, select a region, then paste from the clipboard.

Before every capture, ClipOCR checks CGPreflightScreenCaptureAccess(). Without permission it reports permission_denied, rather than returning a wallpaper-only result. Public builds are signed but not notarized; Gatekeeper may warn at first launch.

1. Choose the EXE setup or MSI on the latest release. The WebView2 runtime is the Tauri runtime prerequisite.
2. Use Ctrl+Alt+X or the tray menu. Drag with the native crosshair overlay, then paste the recognised text.

The selection stays on the monitor where it begins; it cannot span monitors. The overlay cannot draw over elevated/admin apps because of Windows UIPI. A brief console flash at login is possible.

Supported capture path: wlroots compositors such as Hyprland, Sway and River. GNOME/KDE Wayland are not claimed. Get the AppImage, DEB or RPM from the latest release. Install tesseract with the language data you need (for example tesseract-data-eng), plus grim and slurp.

The in-app hotkey cannot fire on Wayland. Bind the CLI in your compositor instead:

Hyprland with Omarchy, in ~/.config/hypr/bindings.lua:

o.bind("CTRL + ALT + X", "ClipOCR capture", "/home/USER/.local/bin/clipocr --capture-ocr")

Use your real home path in place of /home/USER. For plain hyprland.conf, the README instead specifies bind = CTRL ALT, X, exec, …. Sway:

bindsym Ctrl+Alt+x exec clipocr --capture-ocr

The README specifies this Exec= for ~/.config/autostart/clipocr.desktop, including DISPLAY=:0 and the WebKit workarounds for NVIDIA/wlroots:

Exec=env DISPLAY=:0 WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 /home/USER/.local/bin/clipocr

Settings are raw TOML in the platform application-data directory: ~/Library/Application Support/ca.clipocr.desktop/config.toml on macOS and ~/.local/share/ca.clipocr.desktop/config.toml on Linux. The engine allowlist is macVision, Tesseract, WinRT; only the engine shipped for your platform is selectable.

Language choices are validated against the languages available on your system. On Linux, use installed tessdata stems such as eng, deu or fra, not a guessed provider name. A malformed configuration blocks capture until repaired in Settings.

Read the FAQ →