How to Use Snipping Tool Text Actions (OCR) on Windows 11

Text actions is a button in the Windows 11 Snipping Tool that reads the text in a screenshot so you can copy it. Take a snip with Windows logo key + Shift + S, open it in Snipping Tool, select Text actions, then either select the words you want and press Ctrl+C, or choose Copy all text. Microsoft says the text recognition runs locally on your device, and Quick redact can hide email addresses and phone numbers in the image.

How to copy text from a screenshot with Text actions

1. Press Windows logo key + Shift + S and select the area that contains the text. You can also open Snipping Tool from Start and select New.
2. Select the notification that appears to open the snip in the Snipping Tool window.
3. Select Text actions in the toolbar.
4. To copy part of the text, drag across the words you want and press Ctrl+C. To copy everything, select Copy all text.
5. Paste into your document, ticket or chat with Ctrl+V.

The copied result is plain text, so it pastes cleanly into almost anything. Check it before you rely on it (see the accuracy tips below).

How to use Quick redact

Quick redact is one of the Text actions options, alongside Copy all text. It covers the email addresses and phone numbers that Snipping Tool finds in the snip, which is useful before you share a screenshot of an inbox, a CRM record or an order page.

1. Open the snip and select Text actions.
2. Select Quick redact.
3. Check the result. Quick redact only targets text it recognises as an email address or phone number. Names, account numbers and faces stay visible.
4. Cover anything it missed with the Pen or Shapes tools.
5. Press Ctrl+S to save the redacted copy, or Ctrl+C to copy it as an image.

For a fuller pass over what to hide before a screenshot leaves your PC, see how to annotate a screenshot.

Save the screenshot before you copy its text

The clipboard holds one item at a time. When you select Copy all text, the text replaces the screenshot on the clipboard, so Ctrl+V no longer pastes the image.

That matters if you need both the words and the picture, for example an error dialog in a bug report:

1. Make sure the snip exists as a file. Snipping Tool saves snips to the Screenshots folder automatically unless auto-save has been turned off; press Ctrl+S to be sure.
2. Run Text actions and copy the text.
3. Paste the text into the report, then attach the saved image.

If you're not sure auto-save is on, why Win+Shift+S isn't saving what you think shows where the setting is. With clipboard history turned on, the earlier image copy also stays available in Win+V as long as it's under the 4 MB history limit.

Text extractor: skip the screenshot entirely

Newer versions of Snipping Tool add a Text extractor button to the capture bar, so you can grab text without creating a snip first. Microsoft began rolling it out to Windows Insiders in April 2025; if your capture bar doesn't show it yet, use Text actions instead.

1. Press Windows logo key + Shift + S.
2. Select Text extractor in the capture bar.
3. Select the area that contains the text.
4. Select the words you want, or choose Copy all text.

The More options menu in Text extractor has two useful switches: Remove line breaks, which joins wrapped lines into one paragraph, and Automatically copy text, which copies everything in the area and closes the tool straight away.

Text actions vs other ways to copy text from an image

PowerToys Text Extractor needs the free Microsoft PowerToys app, and it only recognises languages whose Windows OCR language pack is installed. How to copy text out of an image on Windows compares these and other methods, including OneNote. If you're a translator pulling UI strings out of screenshots, a clipboard routine for source and target pairs shows where the extracted text should go next.

ShareX can also run OCR as an after-capture task (Recognize text (OCR)). ShareX vs Snipping Tool covers when its extra automation is worth installing.

Getting accurate results

OCR guesses characters from pixels, so a few habits make a big difference:

• Capture larger text. Zoom the page or app in before you snip. Small UI fonts are where most errors happen.
• Check look-alike characters. O and 0, l and 1, and rn and m are the usual mix-ups. Read codes, serial numbers and IDs back character by character.
• Watch the line breaks. Wrapped text often comes out with a break at the end of every line. Use Text extractor's Remove line breaks, or tidy it after pasting.
• Expect tables to flatten. Columns usually come out as lines of text. If the source is a real document or web page, selecting and copying the text there is more accurate.
• Clean up before pasting into a terminal or code. Recognised quotes and dashes may not be the plain characters a command expects.

FAQ

Does Snipping Tool Text actions send screenshots online?

No. Microsoft states that all text recognition in Text actions is performed on the device.

Why is the Text actions button missing?

Text actions belongs to the Windows 11 Snipping Tool, and the button only appears after you've taken an image snip and opened it in the Snipping Tool window. If it's still missing, update Snipping Tool from the Microsoft Store.

Does Text actions work on a photo or a PDF page?

Open the image or page on screen, snip it with Win+Shift+S, and run Text actions on that snip. For a PDF with real text, selecting and copying in the PDF reader gives cleaner results.

Where does the copied text go?

To the clipboard, like any other copy. If clipboard history is on, it also appears in Win+V. Delete it there if it contains personal details; how to clear clipboard history shows how.

Related reading

• How to Copy Text From an Image on Windows 11
• Print Screen vs Win+Shift+S vs Snipping Tool (Windows 11)
• Where Do Win+Shift+S Screenshots Go? Why They Don't Save
• ShareX vs Snipping Tool: Which Screenshot Tool to Use?

Sources

• Use Snipping Tool to capture screenshots (Microsoft Support) — Text actions, Copy all text, Quick redact, on-device recognition, auto-save, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+S.
• Text extractor in Snipping Tool begins rolling out to Windows Insiders (Windows Insider Blog) — Text extractor button, Remove line breaks, Automatically copy text.
• PowerToys Text Extractor (Microsoft Learn) — Win+Shift+T default shortcut and OCR language packs.
• ShareX — Recognize text (OCR) after-capture task.
• Using the clipboard (Microsoft Support) — 4 MB clipboard history item limit.

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